Barooah, AradhanaTeronpi, Malin2024-09-232024-09-232023https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810214814A field experiment was carried out to study the “Effect of lime and zinc on strawberry yield and quality in rice fallow soil” at ICR Farm, Jorhat, during 2022-23. The aim of the experiment was to evaluate the effect of lime and zinc and its application method on yield and quality of strawberry in rice fallow soil. The experiment was done with 2 treatments in the main plot consisting of lime @ 500 kg ha-1 and unlimed, in the sub plots 5 treatments were applied as: T1- Control, T2- N:P:K @ 10:7:7 g / sq. m, T3- RDF + Zn @1.0 kg/ha, T4- RDF + Zn @2.0 kg/ha and T5- RDF + Zn 0.1% foliar spray at 30, 45, 60 and 75 DAP following split plot design with four replications. Application of lime showed significant increase in soil pH, available phosphorous, exchangeable Ca2+ and Mg2+ content. Changes in soil pH, available K, exchangeable Ca2+ and Mg2+ was found to be non-significant among the nutrient treatments, but phosphorous content was highly significant in application of RDF at 30 DAP and then gradually decreased with increase in number of days. Liming did not significantly affect Available N, available K and DTPA Zn content of soil. Among nutrient management practices, significantly higher available N and DTPA Zn was found in application of RDF + Zn @2.0 kg/ha. Available K was nonsignificant among the treatments. Application of lime significantly decreased all the forms of soil acidity and changes in different forms of soil acidity were non-significant among the treatments in the sub-plot. Plant growth parameters like plant height was non significantly influenced by application of lime but application of RDF + Zn 0.1% foliar spray showed the highest plant height at 75 DAP. Liming significantly increased the number of leaves from 45 DAP and application of RDF + Zn 0.1% foliar spray showed the maximum number of leaves at 75 DAP. Application of lime and nutrient management did not influence the leaf relative water content. The days to first flowering and the number of flowers per plant was highly influenced by application of lime. Application of RDF + Zn 0.1% foliar spray showed the minimum number of days required for first flowering and maximum number of flowers per plant. Plant yield parameters like number of fruits per plant, fruit weight and yield and B:C ratio was greatly influenced by application of lime. Among nutrient management, maximum number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, yield and B:C ratio was observed in application of RDF + Zn 0.1% foliar spray. Application of lime and RDF + Zn 0.1% foliar spray significantly enhanced total Zn content of strawberry fruit. After harvesting of strawberry, the soil pH and available P were found to be highly significant by liming whereas available nitrogen and DTPA Zn of soil was found highest in the application of RDF + Zn @ 2 kg/ha as basal and available P was highest in the application of RDF. Strawberry quality parameters like TSS, titratable acidity, ascorbic acid, reducing sugar, non-reducing sugar and total sugar was highly significant in the main plot. Maximum TSS, minimum titratable acidity, maximum ascorbic acid, Reducing sugar, Nonreducing sugar and Total sugar was observed in the application of RDF + Zn 0.1% foliar spray. A sensory evaluation was also conducted and found that flavour, sweetness and appearance of fruit were significantly increased by application of lime. Among nutrient treatments, application of RDF + Zn 0.1% foliar spray reported the significantly higher value in skin colour, pulp colour, flavour, sweetness and appearance.EnglishThesis