Susheel KumarVishal Thakur2023-10-202023-10-202022https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810199561Indian ber (Ziziphus mauritiana Lamk.) is one of the ancient fruit of India. Indian jujube or Indian ber belongs to the family Rhamnaceae and its chromosome number is 2n = 48. It is also considered as the king of arid zone fruits. The Ziziphus genus includes about 135 to 170 species (Islam and Simmons, 2006), and within all of them around 17 are native to India (Pareek, 1983 and Singh et al., 2000). Due to high nutritional and different medicinal properties of the fruit and low cost cultivation, it is also considered as poor man‟s fruit (Gajbhiye et al., 2003). Ber fruit crop is one of the most hardy fruit crop extensively grown in arid and semi-arid regions of India. It can also be grown successfully in marginal ecosystems of sub-tropics and tropics (Pareek, 2001). Due to its deep tap root system, the tree responds well to a large number of soils. Since, the cultivation of ber required least care among other fruits plants; the ber trees are suitable to rehabilitate extensive resource poor areas. Different xerophytic properties of ber are tap root system, presence of scales on buds and deciduous behaviour in summer, has made it possible to cultivate successfully in those areas where no other fruit crop do well (Pareek et al., 2007). Therefore, it is also popularly called as „Desert Apple‟.EnglishThesis