Effect of Organic Practices on Growth, Fruit Yield, Quality and Soil Health of Papaya cv. Arka Prabhat

A field trial on organic practices of papaya cv. Arka Prabhat was conducted from 2010–2011 with 8 nutrient combinations involving farm yard manure, biofertilizers and VAM along with 100% recommended dose of fertilizers and no manure/fertilizer treatment with total of ten treatments. Vegetative parameters were recorded periodically and at 12 months after planting plant height, girth and number of leaves were found to be non significant. However, the results indicated that, the performance of crop growth was higher in organic treatments compared to no manure/fertilizer treatment. Fruit yield and quality parameters were recorded and found to be significant. Maximum fruit yield of 9.28 kg/plant (27.27 t/ha) was recorded with 100% recommended dose of fertilizer where as no manure/fertilizer treatment recorded the minimum 4.12 kg/plant (12.74 t/ha) for 12 months cropping period. The fruit quality attributes such as TSS, average fruit weight, carotenoids, lycopene and ascorbic acid contents were found to be significant and organic practices increased the contents of these compared to 100% recommended dose of fertilizer treatment. Soil health in terms of soil respiration, dehydrogenase activity, load of Azotobacter, PSB and AM spore increased with the organic practices in comparison to 100% recommended dose of fertilizer treatment.