Evaluation of Potentiality of Different Adjuvants for Date Palm Pollination and Fruit Set
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Evaluation of Potentiality of Different Adjuvants for Date Palm Pollination and Fruit Set Kapil Mohan Sharma1
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C. M. Muralidharan1
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D. A. Baidiyavadra1
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Kirti Bardhan2
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C. N. Panchal3
Received: 22 May 2020 / Accepted: 14 August 2020 Ó Society for Sugar Research & Promotion 2020
Abstract In commercial date palm cultivation, artificial pollination is an expensive necessary agronomic practice. For effective pollination, timely availability of pollen is a requisite; however, in time of pollen scarcity and/or in need of higher amount of pollen for mechanical pollination, dilution of pollen with adjuvant is an effective approach. We tested efficiency of pollination by mixing pollen with different low cost and easily available adjuvants, viz. Maida flour, wheat flour, talcum powder, bajra flour, ash and marble dust in 1:9 and 1:19 ratio, over control (no adjuvant) and evaluate their efficacy in sustaining the fruit set and yield. Our results suggest that all of the experimented adjuvants can be diluted up to 1:9 ratio; however, talcum powder can be diluted up to 1:19 without reducing fruit yield.
& Kapil Mohan Sharma [email protected] C. M. Muralidharan [email protected] D. A. Baidiyavadra [email protected] Kirti Bardhan [email protected] C. N. Panchal [email protected] 1
Date Palm Research Station, Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, Mundra-Kachchh, Gujarat 370421, India
2
ASPEE College of Horticulture and Forestry, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari, Gujarat 396450, India
3
Polytechnic in Agriculture, Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, Amirgadh-Banaskantha, Gujarat 385130, India
Keywords Adjuvant Filler Date yield Fruit set Pollen dilution Talcum powder
Introduction Date palm is one of the oldest cultivated crops in the world originated around 6000 years ago in the region of presentday Iraq, while in India, its presence is estimated to be around 500 years old (Johnson et al. 2013; Muralidharan et al. 2008). More than 90 percent of the total cultivated area of date palm in India is concentrated in Kachchh District of Gujarat (Anonymous 2018; Singh 2018). However, in the last two decades (2000–2020) with the availability of high productive tissue cultured plants, there has been a rapid expansion of cultivated area not only in the area adjoining Kachchh but different states of the country, viz. Rajasthan, Punjab, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (Muralidharan et al. 2008, Baidiyavadra et al. 2019). Since date palm is a dioecious crop, male and female flowers are borne in separate plants, and naturally, they are wind pollinated, but chances of their natural pollination are very meager in commercial orchards, where the females are in the main block while male plants are planted either in the border planting or in a limited section of the orchard, restricting the pollen movement and availability to the whole orchard. However, artificial pollination by hand is followed since time immem
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