Effect of Foliar Spray of Potassium and Micronutrients on Yield and Quality of Papaya (Carica papaya L.) cv. Red Lady

Abstract

The study was carried out in Farmer’s field at Basur village, Sorab taluk, Shivamogga dist, during the year 2018-2019. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replication and eleven treatments. Results of this study reveal that the combined application of T7 - K2SO4at 1% + Borax at 0.25% + ZnSO4at 0.25% recorded significantly maximum yield and yield attributing parameters i.e.fruit length (27.20cm),fruit diameter (16.17cm), fruit weight (2438g and 2.43kg), number of fruits per plant (49.67), yield plant-1 (90.07kg) and yield (224.96 t ha-1), pulp weight(2343.74g), peel weight(54.98g), seed weight(52.70g) and quality characters like total soluble solids (13.52 obrix), ascorbic acid (54.42mg 100g-1), total sugar (5.64%), reducing sugar (4.60%) and minimum acidity (0.13%)over control and which was on par with T8 (K2SO4 at 2% + Borax at 0.25% + ZnSO4 at 0.25%) and non-reducing sugar was found to be statistically non-significant among the different treatments. The results revealed that the plants treated with T7 - K2SO4 at 1% + Borax at 0.25% + ZnSO4 at 0.25% were found to be effective to improve the yield and quality of papaya cv. Red Lady.