Vol. 11, Issue 10 (2022)

Author(s):
Roshan Lal Sahu, Prabhakar Singh, Hemant Kumar Panigrahi and Gangaram Rana

Abstract:
The present investigation was undertaken during the year 2020-21 and 2021-22 at experimental field of Horticulture instructional Farm, Department of Fruit Science College of Agriculture, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur (C.G.). The experiment was conducted on twenty years old trees of sapota cv. Cricket Ball with foliar spray of different concentrations of plant growth regulators applied at 50 per cent flowering and pea stage of fruit growth. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design having twenty five treatments, which replicates thrice. It was observed that the plant growth regulators significantly impacted on flowering and fruiting characteristics of sapota cv. Cricket Ball. NAA was found most effective to reduce the fruit drop and increased the fruit retention percentages during whole investigation period. The maximum number of flowers per shoot (11.08), number of fruits per shoot (4.78), fruit set (43.13%), fruit retention (21.25%) and as regard yield, the treatment NAA 200 ppm, when applied at 50 per cent flowering and pea stage of fruit development produced significantly more number of fruits (189.16) as well as yield (22.72 kg/tree), whereas, a reduction in fruit drop per cent (74.13) was observed by the application of same treatment as compared to water spray (control). As far as ripening advancement characters is concerned, application of ethrel @ 1000 ppm at 50 per cent flowering + pea stage (T₁₈) significantly reduced the days to first harvest (211.50), days to last harvest (231.66) and length of harvest period (20.16) as compared to rest of the other treatments tested under the present investigation.