Vol. 11, Issue 12 (2022)

Author(s):
T Rangaraj, C Rajamanickam, K Sundharaiya, C Sankar and T Shanmugasundaram

Abstract:
Acid lime (Citrus aurantifolia Swingle) belongs to the family Rutaceae and widely grown in tropical and subtropical regions of India. Fruits are rich in vitamin C, minerals and salts. Micronutrients such as Zinc, Iron and boron play a vital role in acid lime for growth and development. Generally, acid lime is micronutrient loving plant hence application of micornutrients considerably increases flowering, fruit set and fruit quality and reduces fruit drop. With this background, the present experiment was conducted at find out optimum levels of foliar application of micronutrients on growth, yield and fruit quality of acid lime var. PKM-1 at Citrus Research Station (TNAU), Sankarankovil, Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu during 2019-2020. Foliar application was given twice in a season viz., the first spray at at peak flowering stage and next spray during fruit set stage on selected five trees for each treatment at farmer’s field. The trial was laid out in a randomized block design (RBD) with thirteen treatments and replicated thrice. The present study results revealed that T₁₂ (1.0% Ferrous sulphate + 1.0% Zinc sulphate + 1.0% Copper sulphate + 1.0% Manganese sulphate + 0.3% borax) recorded the highest values of growth, yield and quality traits such as plant height (3.90 m), tree spread (4.70 m) (5.05 cm), number of fruits per plant (612.20), fruit weight (42.80 g), fruit girth (4.95 cm), fruit volume (40.10 cc) and yield per plant (15.08 kg/tree) and quality traits viz., TSS (6.53 ^oBrix), juice content (35.50 ml), ascorbic acid content (33.30 mg/100g), acidity (8.90%) and B:C ratio (2.10) and followed by T₁₁ (0.5% Ferrous sulphate + 0.5% Zinc sulphate + .5% Copper sulphate + 0.5% Manganese sulphate + 0.1% borax) whereas the lowest values was observed in control (T₁₃).