Combined effect of different levels of pruning, nutrition and paclobutrazol on growth and flowering in mango (<em>Mangifera indica </em>L.) cv. Alphonso

Abstract

Favored for its sweetness, richness and flavor, the Alphonso has been called the king of mangoes. Due to its inherent physiological disorders like alternate bearing we have not been able to achieve the expected export of the fruit. Keeping this in view, a field experiment was conducted to find out the effect of pruning, nutrition and plant growth regulators on vegetative growth and flowering in mango (Mangifera indica L.) cv. Alphonso for two consecutive years (2017-18 and 2018-19) in the established mango orchard on 7 years old Alphonso mango trees and maintained at 5 X 5 m spacing at Regional Horticultural Research and Extension Centre, Bengaluru. The highly significant observations were made on panicle character like less days to panicle emergence (17.07) recorded in treatment T11, while more number of panicles per tree (205.96), maximum length of the panicle (37.05cm), more number of secondary branches of panicle (33.47) and also maximum chlorophyll content (2.55mg/g) were recorded in treatment T4.