Effect of bee attractants on yield and quality of onion seed

The present investigation was carried out using onion cv Palam Lohit in the experimental field of Department of Seed Science and Technology, Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan during kharif 2012–13. The experiment was laid out in Randomised Block Design (RBD) with nine treatments replicated thrice. For this study various bee attractants like Bee Scent @ 2.5%, Bee Scent @ 5%, Bee Scent @ 7.5%, sugar solution @ 5%, sugar solution @ 10%, honey solution @ 1% and honey solution @ 2% were used and compared with crop bagged without pollinators and crop without any spray (control). The results revealed that Bee Scent @ 7.5, 5 and 2.5 proved equally good with respect to quantitative (number of seeds/umbel, seed set, deformed seeds, seed yield/plot, seed yield/ha and 1000 seed weight) and qualitative (germination, SVI-L, SVI-M) parameters of onion seed. Therefore on the basis of results, it was suggested that Bee Scent @ 2.5% may be recommended for obtaining higher yield and better quality of onion seed.