Understanding the Degree of Association among Different Horticultural Traits in Banana (Musa paradisiaca L.)

Abstract

The Banana is a member of the Musaceae family and is one of India's most significant fruit crops. Micronutrients are vital for any crop, and inadequate use of micronutrients in maintaining the health and production of the soil has now reached a threatening level. Therefore, the present study, “Understanding the Degree of Association Among Different Horticultural Traits in Banana (Musa paradisiaca L.),” was carried out. The whole study was conducted at the Experimental Farm, Department of Plant Physiology, Agricultural Biochemistry, and Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, College of Agriculture, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, during the years 2020–21 and 2021–22. The experiment was carried out with the Grand Naine cultivar of banana and laid out following a complete randomized block design in three replications. The treatment comprised different concentrations of micronutrients, viz., zinc (1.5 and 2.0 ppm), iron (1.5 and 2.0 ppm), and boron (0.3 and 0.6 ppm). The micronutrients were given as foliar spray at the 3rd and 5th months after planting. To find out the association between the different traits and fruit yield plant-1, correlation analysis was carried out. The results showed that various traits such as plant height, number of leaves, pseudo stem girth, leaf area (morpho-physiological traits), total acidity, zinc content (biochemical traits), bunch length, number of hands bunch-1, bunch weight, number of fruits hand-1, average length of finger and average circumference of finger were highly (p> 0.01 or p< 0.05) and positively associated with the fruit yield plant-1.