Efficacy of chitosan on growth and yield traits of mulberry, Morus sp

Abstract

Chitosan is biopolymer of glucosamine residues, nontoxic, biodegradable and friendly to environment and it also helps to enhance crop production due to their bioactivities. The present experiment was conducted to assess the efficacy of chitosan on the growth and yield related attributes of mulberry, Morus sp. with various concentrations such as 25, 50, 75, 100 and 125 ppm. The chitosan was sprayed thrice on 15, 30 and 45 days after pruning (DAP) on the foliage of three different mulberry varieties namely V1, MR2 and G4. The result revealed that, irrespective of varieties, the foliar application of chitosan at 75 ppm significantly increased the biometric as well as yield related attributes of mulberry over other concentrations. Among the three varieties, V1 showed more response to chitosan application than G4 and MR2. At 75 ppm, chitosan showed marked effect on VI variety of mulberry and significantly increased shoot length (170.67 cm), number of shoots per plant (9.03), number of leaves per shoot (29.48), leaf area (220.26 cm2) and leaf area index (2.72) were observed when compared with control. The application of chitosan at 75 ppm significantly enhanced the yield traits namely weight of 100 leaves (448.10 g), leaf shoot ratio (1.45) and leaf yield (14.01 MT/ha/harvest) in V1.