Impact of pruning on growth, yield and quality of mango cv. Dashehari

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to study the impact of pruning on growth, yield and quality of mango cv. Dashehari. Ten treatments consisted of heading back of terminal shoots at two different levels viz., M1: 10 cm & M2: 20 cm, with two level of frequency i.e., F1: annually & F2: biennially and at two different timings i.e., T1: immediately after fruit harvest (June-July) & T2: during rest period before the emergence of new growth (floral and vegetative) including control as M0F0T0 with and without Paclobutazol (PBZ), were imposed on the trees. The trial was laid out in Randomized block design replicated thrice and single tree served as treatment unit. On the basis of 6 years (2009-2014) pooled data, it was observed that the vigorous growth in terms of tree height (4.56 m), trunk circumference (43.56 cm) and tree spread (3.03 m) were observed in the trees under control (M0F0T0 without PBZ), whereas the trees which were pruned annually by heading back of 20 cm of terminal shoots during rest period before emergence of new growth along with paclabutrazol application (M2F1T2) showed less growth in terms of tree height (3.30 m) and spread (2.21 m). The annual pruning of tree by heading back of 10 cm of terminal shoots immediately after fruit harvest along with paclobutrazol application (M1F1T1) proved effective for increasing the number of fruits per tree (51.31), yield (9.09 kg/tree and 15.14 t/ha), B: C ratio (4.04), maintaining fruit quality and for having the appropriate dwarfing effect on the tree.