Yield Enhancement in Banana through Secondary Nutrients and Boron Application

Abstract

Banana’s are high nutrient demanding crop, which when grown under highly weathered soils with poor base status exhibits wide range of nutrient deficiencies and severe yield reduction. Hence, a field experiment was conducted at instructional farm of Kerala Agricultural University, Nileshwaram, Kasaragod, Kerala to investigate the impact of soil application of secondary nutrients (calcium, magnesium and sulphur) and foliar application of boron in tissue culture (TC) banana (Nendran). The treatments comprised of combinations of two levels of calcium (75 and 150 g Ca per plant), magnesium (25 and 50 g per plant) and sulphur (25 and 50 g per plant) applied during second and fourth month after planting together with two levels of boron (0.25 and 0.5 percentage) given as four rounds of foliar application at first, second, fourth month after planting and the final spray was given after the bunch emergence. Altogether, there were seventeen treatments and three replications with four plants maintained in each replication plot. Data obtained from the field experiment comprising of two hundred and four hardened TC banana plantlets were analyzed statistically using factorial randomized block design and tested for its significance following ANOVA technique using R software. The results indicated that treatment application significantly enhanced the bunch weight and average finger length. The highest bunch weight of 12.92 kg was recorded in T4 (75 g Ca + 25 g Mg + 50 g S + 0.5 % B) while in the control it was 10.34 kg. Hence, yield enhancement of around 25% over control plots could be achieved by the treatment application of secondary nutrients and boron in the tropical acidic soil.