Soil and Leaf Nutrient Status and Fruit Quality of Orange Orchards in Kalmeshwar Tahsil, District Nagpur

Twelve Nagpur mandarin orchards representing most of the area of Kalmeshwar tahsil of Nagpur district were selected for its fertility status, were leaf nutrient status, fruit quality and yield. The soils were silty clay loam to clay in texture, moderate to strongly alkaline, non-saline, calcarious with high free CaCO₃ content (0.6 to 20.7%). The soil available N, P, S and exchangeable calcium were significantly correlated with leaf N, P, S and Ca. The primary, secondary and micronutrients DTPA-Zn, Cu were found to be responsible for development of Nagpur mandarin orchards and showed significant correlation with yield and quality parameters. The CaCO₃ showed the adverse effect on availability of micronutrients and yield of Nagpur mandarin. The yield of Nagpur mandarin i.e. 22.0 to 28.3 tons ha⁻¹ found to be optimum to high. The available N 322.8–376.5 kg ha¹, available P 22.3–34.2 kg ha⁻¹, available K 345.0–460.0 kg ha⁻¹, DTPA-Zn 0.62–1.14 mg kg⁻¹ and DTPA-Cu 2.68–3.86 mg kg⁻¹ in soils may be found optimum for optimum production of Nagpur mandarin in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. The DTPA-Zn should also be kept more than critical limit for better yield and quality. Similarly leaf N (2.61–2.84%), leaf P (0.21–0.26%), leaf K (1.63–1.72%), leaf Zn (14.7–17.6 mg kg⁻¹) and leaf Cu (2.32–3.62 mg kg¹) may also found optimum for yield and quality.