Effect of plant nutrients on quality and shelf life of papaya (Carica papaya L.) Cv. Taiwan Red Lady

Abstract

The present investigation on “effect of plant nutrients on quality and shelf life of papaya (Carica papaya L.) Cv. Taiwan Red Lady” was carried out during 2019 - 2020 in farmer’s field, Pittalagudem village of Nalgonda District, Telangana. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with nine treatments and three replications. Results revealed that the combined foliar application of plant nutrients significantly increased the total soluble solids (12.26 0Brix), total sugars (7.91%), reducing sugars (6.07%), non-reducing sugars (1.84%) and ascorbic acid (23.56 mg 100g-1) and reduced physiological loss in weight PLW% (15.62%), titrable acidity (0.011%) at the same time increased fruit firmness (6.93 kg cm-2) and shelf life (6.83 days) was obtained with the treatment T4: KNO3 (1.5%) + Borax (0.5%) + Ca (NO3)2 (0.5%) + ZnSO4 (0.5%) per tree.