Studies on boron nutrition in relation to yield and quality attributes of banana cv Grand Naine

Abstract

The aim of present investigation was to test the efficiency of soil and foliar application of boron in relation to growth, yield and quality of Grand Naine banana in main as well as ratoon crop. Soil application comprised of four boron levels (Control, 2.5, 5 and 7.5kg ha-1) whereas foliar application involved five levels of solubor viz. 0%, 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3% and 0.4%. All levels of boron and solubor were applied separately in 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th month after planting in main crop while in 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th month after planting in ratoon crop. All data were subjected to RBD factorial analysis which showed significant influence of soil application of 7.5kg ha-1 boron on different yield related characters like fingers/hand (20.28), fingers/bunch (145.13), finger weight (178.66g), bunch weight (21.65kg) and yield (54.13ton ha-1) which is attributed to its positive impact on plant characters like number of leaves (13.50), leaf area (0.92m2), days to maturity (89.58) and total crop duration (366.33days) as well as higher uptake of different nutrients from soil, clearly evident in terms of leaf N (2.57%), P (0.154%), K (3.57%), Mg (0.320%) and B (40.39ppm) content. newline