Performance of Red Onion Varieties in Kharif Season under Akola Conditions

Abstract

Research experiment was carried out during 2012-13 at Main Garden, Department of Horticulture, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola, in order to evaluate the Performance of red onion varieties in kharif season under Akola conditions. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with eight red onion varieties viz. V1(Agrifound Dark Red), V2(Phule Samarth), V3(Baswant-780), V4(N-53), V5(Pune Red), V6(Bhima Super), V7(Bhima Raj) and V8(Bhima Red) which were replicated three times. Results obtained showed that red onion varieties were significantly different when it comes to the plant and bulb morphological characteristics. The variety N-53 produced the maximum height of plant (66.87 cm). While, Bhima Red and Phule Samarth were at par in terms of number of leaves per plant (14.33 and 14.20 cm), bulb diameter (6.61 and 6.36 cm), fresh bulb weight (110.95 and 106.28 gm), cured bulb weight (99.53 and 95.30 gm). Regarding neck thickness, the variety Pune Red recorded minimum (0.87 cm) neck thickness which was at par with N-53 (0.93 cm), Bhima Super (0.97 cm) and Baswant-780 (1.03 cm). The cultivar Bhima Red recorded maximum marketable yield per hectare (328.57 quintal/ha) which was at par with Bhima Raj (298.41 quintal/ha) and Bhima Super (269.83 quintal/ha) respectively. Agrifound Dark Red recorded the maximum TSS (11.47 0Brix) content which was at par with Phule Samarth (10.50 0Brix). Bhima Red variety recorded the zero bolting percentage and minimum splitting percentage (0.33%). The cultivar Bhima Red and Bhima Raj were performed well for the Akola region in kharif season.