Effect of pre harvest sprays of calcium on yield, quality and shelf life of guava
Abstract
The present investigation entitled “Effect of pre harvest sprays of calcium on yield, quality
and shelf life of guava” was carried out at the experimental orchard and PG lab of the Department of
Horticulture, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar during rainy and winter season of 2022-23. A
Randomized Block Design (RBD) with ten treatments, each replicated three times, was employed to
examine the influence of different calcium compounds on guava cv. Hisar Safeda. Thirty uniform plants
were selected for data collection and subjected to sprays of varying concentrations of CaCl2 (0.5%, 1.0%,
and 1.5%), Ca(NO3)2 (0.5%, 1.0%, and 1.5%), and CaSO4 (0.5%, 1.0%, and 1.5%) one month prior to
harvesting. The study revealed that different treatments had a significant impact on all measured
parameters in terms of both quantitative and qualitative assessment of the fruits. It was observed that
there was increase in decay loss, PLW and specific gravity with the advancement of storage period,
during both the seasons, independent of the treatments applied. On the other hand, moisture content and
fruit firmness were found to decrease with passage of storage time, regardless of treatments during both
the seasons. The organoleptic ratings also decreased as the storage period progressed in all treatments.
Notably, the change in colour from yellowish-green to yellow during storage was relatively gradual in
the trees treated with calcium nitrate (1.5%). Among treatments, calcium nitrate (1.5%) exhibited highest
number of fruits per tree, maximum fruit weight, maximum yield, TSS, TSS: Acid ratio, reducing sugars,
non-reducing sugars, total sugars, moisture content, specific gravity, physiological loss in weight, decay
loss and maximum organoleptic ratings in both the seasons while, fruit firmness, ascorbic acid, pectin
and phenol content were found to be maximum in the calcium chloride (1.5%) treatment. It was also
observed that winter season fruits of all the treatments were much more superior to rainy season fruits.