Effect of assisted pollination on reproductive and fruit quality in custard apple cv. Arka Sahan

Abstract

A research was conducted at the horticulture research farm, Career Point University, Kota during the session 2024-2025. The experiment consisted of ten treatments combination comprising different pollination time and pollinaizers of different custard apple verities. The experiment design was used of Randomized Block Design with three replications. As regard to reproductive parameters, plants with 1st Pollination of Arka Sahan with Balanagar (T1) had minimum (7.43) number of days taken to fruit set while maximum fruit set (55.90%) and maximum fruit retention (84.66%) was recorded in 2nd Pollination of Arka Sahan with Raydurg (T4). In physical parameters, treatment 1st Pollination of Arka Sahan with Balanagar, (T1) produced maximum number of fruit weight (328.46 g), fruit diameter (9.25 cm) and minimum number of areoles (64.24). Better quality parameters viz. maximum pulp weight (251.22 g), pulp per cent (76.41%), highest pulp: seed ratio (24.80), highest rind weight (65.12 g), higher seed length (12.28 mm), maximum seed width (10.01 mm) and minimum seed weight (3.66 g) was recorded under 1st Pollination of Arka Sahan with Balanagar (T1).