STANDARDIZATION OF PRUNING INTENSITY OF POMEGRANATE FOR ITS QUALITY PRODUCTION

Pomegranate, being hardy fruit plant can grow well climatically in tropical to temperate region. Training of pomegranate is practiced to train the frame of the plant as single or semi multi-stemmed and to boost productivity subsequently. The current study was conducted on 3-stemmed trained plant having 5- year age to find out the best pruning intensity for better quality and yield of pomegranate (cv. Golden) during 2020-21 and 2021-22. Four different treatments viz T1 as control (unprunned) and the other contained pruning of side branches from tip to base upto 20 cm (T2 ), 40 cm (T3 ) and 60 cm (T4 ) was carried out during the 2nd fortnight of November, 2020 and 2021. It was concluded that all pruning levels (20-60 cm) significantly affected fruit productivity, quality and bio-chemical parameters. However, 60 cm pruning (T4 ) gave maximum values for averaged yield per plant (56 kg), fruit size (50 cm2), fruit weight (253g), number of arils per fruit (319), arils weight (170.4 g), rind weight (79.90 g), rind thickness (2.40 mm), total sugars (14.50%), total soluble solids (15.30 oBrix%), juice (39.90%) with minimum number of fruits per plant (186) and minimum fruit acidity (0.23%) from means calculated over two years’ data. Unpruned plants (T1 ) had minimum values for yield per plant (42 kg), fruit size (39 cm2), weight of single fruit (172 gram), arils in single fruit (262), arils weight (118.6 g), rind weight (52. 5g), rind thickness (1.90 mm), total sugars (13.2%), total soluble solids (14.1 oBrix), juice (36.1%) with maximum fruits on single plant (238) and the highest acidity of fruit (0.28%). Hence, 60 cm pruning (T4 ) of side branches from tip to base can be opted to boost fruit production and quality parameters of Golden variety of pomegranate under semi-arid region of South Punjab, Pakistan.