Fortification of fertilizers with organic amendments and bio- inoculants for augmenting yield and quality in papaya

Fruit yield and quality largely rely on the efficacy of fertilization used to supplement the nutrition. Plants of papaya cv. Red Lady 786 were grown in different combinations of growing media, viz., biogas slurry, farmyard manure and chemical fertilizers combined with bio-inoculant consortium of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) under protected conditions. All the treatment combinations recorded significant improvement in plant physical growth attributes, yield and fruit quality traits as compared to untreated plants. Plant height (265.5 cm), diameter (47.0 cm), number of leaves (47.13), fruit number (56.70), fruit weight (1249.2 g) and yield (68.30 kg/plant) were recorded to be the highest with the combinational applications of biogas slurry and inorganic fertilizers fortified with consortium of AMF. The time of flower initiation and fruit set was witnessed to be minimum (96.13 and 72.67 days, respectively) with the same treatment and the plants outyielded the recommended combination of chemical and organic fertilization. The fruit TSS, acidity, reducing and total sugars registered significant augmentation with the biogas slurry + inorganic fertilizers with AMF. Balanced fertilization strategy, combining inorganic fertilizers with biogas slurry and AMF has been substantiated to be beneficial for plant growth, yield and fruit quality in papaya.