Growth Monitoring of Harumanis Mango Leaves (Mangifera Indica) at Vegetative Stage Using SPAD Meter and Leaf Area Meter

Abstract

Current advancement in orchard farming has results in ultra-high density planting of harumanis mango trees under greenhouse production system. The innovative approach in monitoring the nutrient status is deemed necessary to manage the growth of the trees. Sufficient application of nutrient especially nitrogen will exhibit healthy green color on the leaf while deficiency in nitrogen will result in poor leaf color. The level of greenness in the leaf will indicate the overall healthiness of the plant. There are very limited studies that indicate the growth of harumanis leaves at discrete time interval during it developmental stage. The objective of this research is to study the growth development of harumanis leaves by using SPAD meter and area meter at vegetative stage. SPAD reading were taken from the leaves at the age of 2nd to 7th week by using a Minolta SPAD-502 meter. Leaves were sampled from 32 trees and statistical analysis was conducted to determine the relationship of age to the growth of the leaves for its area expansion and the SPAD reading. The result for SPAD reading of the leaves shows significant increase with the growing period while leaves area shows less significance different during the growing period. This study concluded that SPAD meter can be used as a reliable tool to indicate the growth of the leaves instead of the leaf area measurement.