STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF FOLIAR SPRAY OF CERTAIN CHEMICALS ON YIELD , QUALITY AND POSTHARVEST BEHAVIOUR OF MANGO CV

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) often referred as the king of fruits, is the most important tropical fruit crops of the world after banana and plantain. Despite of higher area and production, the productivity of the crop in the country is still quite low (7.3 t/ha) as compared to other fruit crops like papaya, banana, apple, grape, citrus etc. Hence there is huge scope to improve the national productivity of mango by rectifying all the production problems. Moreover, the domestic as well as the export market has massive demand of mango fruits. Although India is the largest mango producing country in the world but its export in the world market is less than one percent of total production. Thus India has immense potential in near future to assert a strong presence in the global mango export market by improving the quality of the produce which is still under-developed. Among the various cultivars recommended for cultivation under the agro-climatic condition of Bihar, Langra is the most popular and commercial cultivar with maximum area coverage. However, there are heavy post-harvest losses of this cultivar, since it has shortest shelf life of only about one week. Hence keeping these points in view, the present experiment entitled “Study on the effect of foliar spray of certain chemicals on yield, quality and postharvest behaviour of mango cv. Langra” was conducted at BAC, Sabour during year 2016-2017. The study aimed to investigate the influence of preharvest foliar spraying with K, Ca, B and Zn nutrients on fruit yield, quality as well as shelf life of mango. Foliar spray of these four nutrients were done 30 days before harvesting (30 May, 2016) of mango fruit. The experiment was laid down in randomized block design with thirteen treatments and three replications. The experiment consist of 13 treatments including control, Calcium Chloride @ 4.0% (T1), Calcium Chloride @ 6.0% (T2), Calcium Chloride @ 8.0% (T3), Potassium Sulphate @ 1.0% (T4), Potassium Sulphate @ 1.5% (T5), Potassium Sulphate @ 2.0% (T6) , Borax @ 1.0 (T7), Borax @ 1.5 (T8), Borax @ 1.0 (T9), Zinc Sulphate @ 0.2% (T10), Zinc Sulphate @ 0.4% (T11), Zinc Sulphate @ 0.8% (T12), and (T13) were used for this study . The results revealed that the foliar application of borax @ 1.0% was most effective in increasing total number of fruits/plant, pulp weight and pulp percentage while fruit weight was maximum in borax @ 2.0%. However, maximum yield/plant, yield/ha, fruit length, volume and edible: nonedible ratio with minimum peel weight, peel percentage, and minimum physiological weight loss on 10 th day of storage was observed in foliar spray of calcium chloride @ 4.0%. Fruit width was recorded maximum in zinc sulphate @ 0.8%. Observations on fruit quality parameters viz. TSS, TSS: TA ratio, total sugars content, total carotenoids, ascorbic acid, total phenolics content revealed that the quality of the fruit was significantly better in foliar spary of borax @ 1.0%. The results indicated that on 10 th day of storage maximum total soluble solids, reducing sugar, non-reducing sugar, total sugar content, total carotenoids content as well as ascorbic acid of mango fruits was recorded in borax @ 1.0%. However, calcium chloride @ 4.0% was found to be the best treatments in reducing weight loss along with minimum decay loss on the 10 th day of storage. (Major Advisor) Anugya Kumari List of Abbreviations Abbreviation : Expansion