Influence of cultivars, cropping systems and nutrient levels on yield and quality of mango in north India

Abstract

A field experiment was carried-out on 3-year-old mango trees (6 m × 6 m) during 2011-12 and 2012-13 at New Delhi to study the effect of cultivar, cropping system and nutrient level on yield and quality parameters. The experiment was laid out in a split-split-plot design with three replications. The main plots comprised of four cultivars, viz., Pusa Surya, Amrapali, Mallika and Dashehari, sub-plots consisted of four cropping systems, viz., vegetable cowpea-Indian mustard, green gram-Indian mustard, blackgram-Indian mustard and sole mango. Sub-sub plots included three fertility levels viz., control, 50% recommended dose of NPK fertilizers (RDF) + 50% recommended dose of FYM (RD-FYM), and 100% RDF + 100% RD-FYM to mango. A marked variation in fruit yield and fruit quality was observed among mango cultivars. ‘Amrapali’ exhibited supremacy over rest of the cultivars for yield and quality parameters. Under vegetable cowpea-mustard system, the mango fruit yield and yield parameters were comparatively higher. However, the physical and biochemical fruit quality parameters showed a non-significant variation among cropping systems. Application of 100% RDF + 100% RD-FYM remaining at par with 50% RDF + 50% RD-FYM produced significantly higher number of fruits/plant (16.5 and 24.3), fruit weight (212 and 223 g) and pulp: stone ratio (5.01 and 5.02) during 2011-12 and 2012-13, respectively over control. Application of 100% RDF + 100% RD-FYM exhibited higher biochemical quality parameters viz., TSS, vitamin C, total carotenoids and total sugars during both years over other treatments. Overall, ‘Amrapali’, vegetable cowpea-mustard cropping system and application of 100% RDF + 100% RD-FYM were the best performing treatments in terms of fruit yield and quality parameters in the current study.