Impact of Spacing and Plant Growth Regulators on Flowering and Yield Attributes of Strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa Duch.) cv. Winter Dawn under Polyhouse Condition

Abstract

The experiment was carried out at the polyhouse of the College of Agriculture, Ummedganj Kota, Rajasthan during 2021-22 and 2022-23 to evaluate the performance of spacing and plant growth regulators on flowering and yield attributes of strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa Duch.) cv. Winter Dawn under polyhouse condition. The experiment was designed in a factorial randomized block design with involving eighteen treatment combinations comprising two plant spacing viz., 15 cm×30 cm & 30 cm×30 cm and three plant growth regulators viz., salicylic acid (50 ppm, 100 ppm & 150 ppm), Triacontanol (5 ppm, 10 ppm & 15 ppm) and NAA (25 ppm, 50 ppm & 75 ppm), respectively. The experiment revealed that maximum number of flowers per plant (25.08), days taken to initiation of flowering (34.69), duration of flowering (45.27 days), number of fruits per plant (24.36) and fruit set (81.52%) was recorded under treatment S2 (30 cm ×30 cm) spacing. In terms of PGRs the highest number of flowers per plant (27.11), duration of flowering (50.13 days), the shortest time (32.78 days ) to flower initiation , number of fruits per plant (22.57) and fruit set was(84.07%) obtained under the treatment treated with SA at 100 ppm whereas, the interaction effect showed that the maximum number of flowers per plant (27.89), duration of flowering (51.81days) and minimum days taken to initiation of flowering (32.00), number of fruits per plant (26.55) and fruit set (84.75%) was recorded under S2+SA100 ppm (30 cm ×30cm + Salicylic@100 ppm) treatment combination. It can be concluded that treatment combination of 30 × 30 cm +SA @ 100 ppm exhibited superior performance in terms of the number of flowers, duration of flower, days taken to initiation of flowering, number of fruits per plant and fruit set % among other treatment combinations used.