Effect of micronutrients on quality and shelf-life of strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) cv. chandler

Abstract

Strawberry is one of the important and delicious fruit in the world. It has a unique place among cultivated berry fruits. It is a man-made hybrid which belongs to the family Rosaceae and its chromosome number 2n=8X=56. An experiment was conducted at Research field, Department of Horticulture, SHIATS, Allahabad, during the year 2015-2016. The experiment was laid out in Randomised Block Design having thirteen treatments of micronutrients at different levels and each micronutrient combination with three replications. The treatments consisted of ZnSO4 (0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%), Boron (0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%), FeSO4 (0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%) and its combination of different levels. The results indicated that application of the 0.4% (ZnSO4+ Boron+ FeSO4) was found to be best in terms of maximum fruit yield per plot (g), maximum TSS (aµ’ B) on 3rd day, 5th day and 7th day, minimum acidity (%) on 3rd day, 5th day and 7th day, pH on 3rd day, 5th day and 7th day was found from T11 and maximum TSC (%) on 3rd day, 5th day and 7th day from T10 treatment, maximum vitamin-C (g) on 3rd day, 5th day and 7th day and maximum shelf-life (at the room temperature) (2.51 days) T11 treatment. Studies indicated that pre-harvest foliar application of ZnSO4, Boron and FeSO4 are useful for improving the yield, quality and shelf-life of the fruits.