Effect of Orchard floor management practices on growth, yield and quality of Assam Lemon (Citrus limon Burm.)
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Date
2017-07
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AAU, Jorhat
Abstract
An experiment on “Orchard Floor Management Practices on Growth,
Yield and Quality of Assam Lemon (Citrus limon Burm.)” was conducted during 2015-
2017 at Instructional cum Research Farm, Department of Horticulture, B.N. College of
Agriculture, AAU, Biswanath Chariali with three objectives to study (i) Effect of
different orchard floor management practices on growth, yield and quality of Assam
Lemon (ii) Effect of different treatments of orchard floor management on weed growth
in Assam Lemon plantation, (iii) Effect of different treatments of orchard floor
management on different properties of soil in Assam Lemon plantation. Eight treatment
combinations were laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replications in the
field. The treatments were T1 (clean cultivation-removal of all weeds manually), T2
(mulching with dry leaves -10 cm thick), T3 (mulching with black polythene sheet -100
micron thickness), T4 (cover cropping with cowpea-sown at 6 months interval), T5
(green manuring with dhaincha -sown at 3 months interval), T6 (cover cropping with
sweet potato), T7 (sowing of sesame in two seasons), T8 (control i.e. without any
treatment).
The results revealed that treatment T3 (mulching with black polythene
sheet -100 micron thickness) showed maximum plant height (190.40 cm), number of
laterals per primary shoot (5.66), number of leaves (32.19) and total leaf area
(961.20cm2) with average number of hermaphrodite flowers (60.06) during April,
2016, fruit set (32.93 % in May, 2016), fruit retention (93.38 % in June, 2016), total
number of fruits (810.18 per plant) harvested during one year of study and fruit yield
(138.6 t/ha) with average fruit juice (27.55 %), titratable acidity (5.39 %), ascorbic acid
content (39.31 mg/100 ml) were found to be highest in T3 (mulching with black
polythene sheet) while average fruit length (10.38 cm), diameter (5.47 cm), weight
(155.30 g), volume (155.68 cc), pulp-peel ratio (3.46) in T2 (mulching with dry leaves).
Assam Lemon fruits could be stored for 14 days by wrapping with shrink film under
refrigerated condition with retention of green colour and minimum physiological loss in
weight.
Total chlorophyll content was highest (1.25 mg g-1 of fresh weight) in
T3 (mulching with black polythene sheet). Soil moisture content in different treatments
showed less variation among the treatments. However, moisture content was highest in
July, 2016. Bacterial population increased significantly in different treatments over the
bacterial population recorded before application of treatments whereas fungal
population was found to be non-significant.