Responses of half shoot pruning on growth, flowering and yield in meadow orchard of guava

The present investigation was conducted to find out the response of half shoot pruning on vegetative growth, flowering and yield in meadow orchard of guava. The treatments consisted of seven different combinations of time of shoot pruning with unpruned control. In this way there were eight treatments replicated four times in Randomised Block Design with two plants as a treatment unit. Findings revealed that half shoot (50%) pruning significantly influenced cropping pattern of guava. Half shoot pruning in April and July have positive effect towards managing vegetative growth viz., plant height, plant spread, plant stem diameter and plant volume during both the years. Pruning in April resulted in emergence of more number of new shoots/plant, flower buds/plant, higher fruit set during winter season, almost equal number of fruits/plant and fruit weight during both rainy and winter season crop. Lowest (1.04 kg) fruit yield/plant was recorded in unpruned control in winter season. However, highest (8.79 kg.) total fruit yield/plant with inferior fruit quality was recorded with Pruning in October which remained unpruned in April and July.