HortFlora Research Spectrum

277-285

Authors: Tatek Dejene, Omarsherif Mohamed and Haile Adamu

The Boswellia pre-dominated woodland, belonging to the Combretum–Terminalia deciduous woodlands of the dry forests of Ethiopia, forms the largest vegetation cover and is widespread in the northern and north-western lowland part of the country. This paper has tried to review and discuss the current contribution of the Boswellia dominated woodlands and its main threats which contributed for its degradation based on different empirical studies. From the review it is understood that the Boswellia pre-dominated woodland represents important natural resources on which development could be based since it offer diverse products of commerce such as incense, wood and honey, and support to other economic activities such as fodder for livestock and soil conservation for crop farming. However, the annually cash income generated by households from the Boswellia woodland is only 1089.55 ETB, which is 18.32 fold less than that of the income from the agriculture. The low cash flow is shown to be due to policy restrictions on the engagement of the local people in producing and marketing frankincense, a principal product from the woodland. Such low cash contribution by the woodland motivated the local people to continuously clear and convert the woodland in to agricultural land. In lined with this, the structure of some of the important species in the woodland showed a hump shaped curve distribution, suggesting regeneration is severely lacking and the population is under serious threat in the long term. Therefore, the main conclusion of this study is that the Boswellia woodland, although worthy of sustainable management and utilization even on the basis of economic criteria, is continuing to suffer conversion to other land uses which offer benefits in the short term and in which farmers have more confidence in terms of economic benefits and ownership rights of the land. Therefore, to maximize the actual value of the Boswellia pre-dominated woodland, policies and institutions that govern access to and use of forest resources and their management need to be revised in such a way that the locals will have the legal right and the confidence to own or co-own the forest resources in their vicinity, and will continue to manage and utilize it.

294-303

Authors: Nidhi Prakash and Mohammad Yunus

The present study was planned to evaluate the effect of auto-exhausts on a very common ornamental plant i.e. African marigold (Tagetes erecta) plants which also possess aromatic & medicinal properties and natural source of antioxidants. The plant is also recommended for growing with rose for its allelopathic nature. The area under marigold cultivation is increasing every year due to its increasing demand throughout the world. To assess the effect of auto-exhaust on marigold plants transfer experiment study was conducted. Three sites (Road stretches) within the municipal premises of Lucknow city were identified based on survey of sites and the available data on air pollution loads, which differ with each other very significantly in terms of the number of vehicles (source of pollution) plying there. A comparison of contents of photosynthetic pigments, protein, proline and cysteine among Tagetes erecta plants kept at three different sites very explicitly indicates the bearing of auto exhaust effect on them. Marked alteration in bio-chemical characteristics of plant was ob served in plants grown at highly polluted site as compared to plant grown at less polluted site.

311-318

Authors: P.S. Kashyap

Efficient management of depleting water resources is important in order to enhance crop productivity and to attain high water use efficiency. The study aimed at identifying irrigation management practices, which could result in water savings through deliberate under irrigation. Field experiments were conducted at Hill Campus, Ranichauri, Tehri-Garhwal, Uttarakhand, India on potato crop (Kufri Chandramukhi) over a period of two years during the winter seasons of 2008-09 and 2009-10. The crop was planted in first week of November and harvested in the last week of March spanning approximately 150 days. Three irrigation treatments were maintained based on the maximum allowable depletion (MAD) of available soil water. The treatments were 20% (T1), 40% (T2) and 60% (T3) maximum allow able depletion of available soil water. No soil water stress was maintained at the initial stages of the crop development so as to allow the plant attain a healthy growth. Soil moisture content was measured by gravimetric method periodically in 0-15, 15-30 and 30-45 cm soil profiles. Soil moisture showed a cyclic temporal variation at all three selected soil depths. The magnitude of this variation was higher in 0-15 cm soil profile and decreased in 15-30 and 30-45 cm soil profiles in that order. This trend was observed at all schedules of irrigation. Field experiments revealed that irrigation schedule with 40% maximum allowable depletion of available soil water gave the maximum water use efficiency for potato crop. For scheduling of irrigation of potato crop, 0-30 cm soil profile should be considered as most of the required water to be extracted from this layer by the plant.

324-328

Authors: Amit Kumar Goswami, R.G. Somkuwar, Roshni Samarth, A.K. Sharma, Supriya Nawale and Prerna Itroutwar

An experiment to study the shelf life of four table grape varieties was conducted at National Research Centre for Grapes, Pune (M.S.). Grape bunches packing and the cold storage condition for 30 days after pre cooling for 24 hours was according to the export standard. After cold storage, shelf life and other quality parameters were recorded for four days. Lowest physiological loss of weight was recorded in Sharad Seedless followed by Mahadev Seedless. These two varieties also performed better for the quality parameters in terms of bunch weight, 5 berry weight and berry diameter which are favourable for better shelf life. Significant differences were found for the quality parameters except total soluble solids (TSS). Overall, Sharad Seedless and Mahadev Seedless recorded with the lowest per cent of berry fallen and rotting among the four varieties studied.

335-340

Authors: Tanjeet Singh Chahal and J.S. Bal

The study on the effect of pre-harvest chemical treatments in Kinnow mandarin was conducted at Khalsa College, Amritsar for two years. Pre-harvest foliar application of GA3 (10, 20, 30ppm), triacontanol (400, 600ppm), CaCl2 (4, 6%) and Ca(NO3)2 (0.1, 0.2, 0.3%) was given to the Kinnow plants of fifteen years of age. The harvesting of the fruits was done on January 1st, January 15th, February 1st and February 15th during both the years and yield of the fruits was calculated along with their physical analysis. It was observed that the maximum fruit yield to the tune of 54.88kg/plant was recorded with the application of GA3 at 30ppm and it was proved to be the most efficacious treatment for improving fruit quality in respect of fruit size, weight and juice con tent. Max i mum peel thickness was observed with CaCl2 at 6 per cent.

346-351

Authors: Pallavi Chaudhary, Sanjay Kumar and Prawal Pratap Singh Verma

Genetic variability in terms of correlation and path coefficient were studied for yield per plant and its attributing traits in 16 genotypes of eggplant. Significant positive genotypic correlation coefficient was observed by fruit weight, number of leaves per plant, number of fruits per plant and number of flowers per plant. An overall observation of path coefficient studies revealed that the direct contribution of fruit yield per plant, fruit yield per hectare, fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, and number of flowers per plant was of higher magnitude on fruit yield. High negative direct effect was recorded in total sugar followed by reducing sugar and fruit length. Direct selection may be executed considering these traits as the main selection criteria to reduce in direct effects of the other characters during the development of high-yielding eggplant varieties/hybrids.

356-359

Authors: Bibhuti Bhusan Sahoo, Bhaskar Chandra Das, Purandar Mandal and Dheerendra Katiyar

An experiment was conducted in the laboratory of the Department of CIHAB, Palli Sikshya Bhavana (Institute of Agriculture), Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan (WB) on storage life of tomato fruits with different post harvest treatments. The experiment was laid out in RBD with nine treatments each comprising of three replications and ten fruits per replication. The results revealed that ripening was initially delayed by MAP, NAA and NAA+MAP treatments. Among all the chemicals the performance of GA3, was better than NAA in reducing physiological loss in weight of tomato. The results on the colour development of the fruit in storage indicated that the percentage colour development varied significantly in all the treatments of tomato fruits up to 6th day of storage.

363-365

Authors: Hemlata Bharti, B.P. Singh and K.P. Singh

The present experiment was conducted to find out the interaction effect of variety, type of cutting and IBA concentration on rooting in cuttings of croton. Overall performance of hard wood cutting of broad leaf variety treated with 400ppm IBA was found significantly superior in inducing the highest rooting percentage (82.34%), took lesser time for sprouting (10 days), survival per cent age (80.04%) and sprouting percentage (88.66) than other treatments. The hot and humid condition were conducive for growing semi-hard wood and hard wood cuttings of broad leaf as well as narrow leaf variety of croton which were able to show good performance. Out of three types of cuttings, semi-hard wood cuttings and 200ppm IBA was found better in comparison to 400ppm IBA with broad leaf for rooting and establishment. Therefore, it is concluded that croton can be multiplied by cuttings under green house condition with IBA treatments.

369-371

Authors: Purandar Mandal, Bibhuti Bhusan Sahoo, Bhaskar Chandra Das and Dheerendra Katiyar

Aonla plays an important role in human nutrition. The fruits are not consumed freely in fresh form because of its astringent taste. But the excellent nutritive and therapeutic values of fruits have great potentiality for processing in to various quality products. In present study different recipes of Aonla ready to serve (RTS) was standardized to explore the processing potential of Aonla. There were five different possibilities of recipes. The RTS pre pared from the recipes 10% pulp, 12% TSS and 0.30% acidity gave highest organoleptic quality score followed by RTS pre pared from 10% pulp, 10% TSS and 0.30% acidity and the quality of the pre pared RTS was maintained up to fourth month at ambient temperature.

374-375

Authors: Jitendra Singh

Vivipary is of unusual occurrence in papaya. In viviparic fruits, seeds germinate in side while still they remain attached with fruits. Such fruits are insipid in taste. If cut exposed, the germinated seeds inside the fruit look very clearly. High humidity and warm weathers appear associated with the viviparic fruits in papaya.