Vegetos

Abstract

The self fertile cultivars of Japanese plums such as Kala Amritsari suffers with heavy flowering and fruiting which leads to poor quality fruit production. Manipulation of crop load can be an effective way to achieve the desired fruit yield of good quality. It can be achieved by flower and fruit thinning, manually and chemically. In recent years, research on flower buds inhibition is being conducted in different fruit crops using hormones like gibberellins. In this study, selected trees were sprayed with GA₃ solutions (0, 25, 50, 75, 100 ppm) before the leaf fall stage in the year 2015 and 2016. GA₃ applications delayed full bloom stage and fruit set stage. It was observed that increasing concentration of GA₃ reduced the number of flowers (137.50, 144.00); fruit set (31.60%, 30.72%) and thereby number of fruits per shoot, significantly in both years being minimum with GA₃ at 100 ppm. The reduced flower buds and crop load lead to increase in fruit weight (15.68g, 13.98g), but decrease in total yield (40.13 kg/tree, 39.76kg/tree) with GA₃ 100 ppm applications in both years followed by GA₃ at 75ppm. The quality parameters also improved with GA₃ application but were observed maximum with GA₃ at 75 ppm.