Influence of different soilless substrates and jeevamrit on flowering and fruiting behaviour of strawberry (Fragaria X ananassa Duch.) cv. Chandler

Abstract

Strawberry cultivation in Himachal Pradesh is based mainly on outdoor planting using soil as a growing media which invariably leads to many problems related to soil borne pests, diseases, nematodes and other soil limiting factors resulting in poor yield and poor quality fruits. As such, in an effort to make the crop remunerative, a polyhouse experiment was carried out to investigate the response of strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) to different soilless substrates along with jeevamrit. The experiment comprised of six treatments viz. cocopeat (50%) + FYM (50%) + jeevamrit, perlite (50%) + FYM (50%) + jeevamrit, cocopeat (50%) + perlite (50%) + jeevamrit, perlite (75%) + cocopeat 25%)+ jeevamrit, soil (50%) + FYM (50%)+ jeevamrit and soil + FYM as control with four replications. The results revealed that perlite (75%) + cocopeat (25%) + jeevamrit resulted in the maximum number of flowers, berry set, berry yield, berry size, berry weight and total soluble solids as compared to control. The number of days to first flowers was minimum while duration of flowers was maximum under perlite (50%) + FYM (50%) + jeevamrit. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that perlite (75%) + cocopeat (25%) + jeevamrit can be successfully used for better production of good quality strawberry under polyhouse.