Effect of Gibberellic Acid and Naphthalene Acetic Acid on Initial Fruit Set, Drop, Retention, Yield And Quality of Ber (Ziziphus Mauritiana Lamk.)

The present experiment was conducted in the Horticulture Garden, Department of Fruit Science, Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur (U.P.) from October 2022 to March 2023 to find out the effect of GA₃ and NAA on fruit set, drop, retention, yield and quality of ber cv. Banarasi Karaka. The experiment was carried out using ten treatments viz., T₁-Control, T₂-GA₃ @15 ppm, T₃-GA₃ @ 25 ppm, T₄-GA₃ @ 35 ppm, T₅-NAA @ 10 ppm, T₆-NAA @ 20 ppm, T₇-NAA @ 30 ppm, T₈-GA₃ @ 15 ppm + NAA @ 10 ppm, T₉-GA₃ @ 25 ppm + NAA @ 20 ppm and T₁₀-GA₃ @ 35 ppm + NAA @ 30 ppm, with three replications in Randomized Block Design. The findings of the experiment clearly revealed that the foliar spray of GA₃ @ 35 ppm + NAA @ 30 ppm significantly enhanced initial fruit set (170), fruit retention (19.40%), fruit volume (19.84cc), fruit length (5cm), fruit diameter (3.35cm), fruit weight (15.50g), fruit pulp weight (14.45g), pulp/stone ratio (13.76), TSS (15.300Brix), ascorbic acid content (99.35 mg/100g pulp), total sugars (10.10%) and yield (32.10 kg/tree). Additionally, this treatment regimen reduced fruit drop (80.10%), stone weight (1.05g) and titratable acidity (0.15%) contents in the plains of North India.