Effect of Different Growth Promoting Substances on Rejuvenated Sapota Plants

An experiment on “Effect of growth promoting substances on rejuvenated sapota plants” was carried out at Main Garden, University Department of Horticulture, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola, Maharashtra, India during the year 2013–2014. The investigation was done on uniform and rejuvenated 45 year old plants of sapota variety Kalipatti. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with nine treatment combinations and each treatment was replicated thrice. Plant growth promoting substances like KNO₃ (potassium nitrate) and GA₃ alone or in combination with different concentration was sprayed in 1^st week of July, August and September in 2013 during the course of the investigation. Growth observations like leaf area (cm²), Chlorophyll content (mg/g); Yield and yield contributing characters like number of flowers per shoot, fruit set percentage, Fruit drop %, Days required for flowering to harvesting, Number of fruits per plant, fruit yield, fruit size, fruit volume, fruit weight; Quality parameters like fruit moisture, peel weight, pulp weight, total soluble solids, acidity, total sugar content, seed weight were studied during the research. The treatment T₉ (2% KNO₃ + 50 ppm GA₃) was found superior among all other treatments in terms of the highest number of fruit per plant and fruit yield with earlier flowering along with the various fruit quality parameters such as highest in pulp content, total soluble solids, total sugar content.