Influence of Flower Inducer on Flowering, Yield and Fruit Quality of Mango (Mangifera indica L.) cv. Amrapali Planted under Different Spacing

Flowering is the first of several events that lay the foundation for mango production every year. The temperatures below 15°C readily promote floral induction. Decrease in temperature below 20 0C is common in sub-tropical regions but seldom occurs in many tropical ones. So, an alternative strategy for optimum flower initiation under tropical condition is essentially required for increasing the productivity of plant. Among different strategies evolved, paclobutrazol and potassium nitrate application is effective not only in flower induction but also in early and offseason flower production in mango. Hence, an experiment was conducted to study the effect of paclobutrazol and potassium nitrate on the flowering, fruit yield and quality of Amrapali mango (Mangifera indica L.) plants grown under different plant spacings at Horticultural Research Station, OUAT, Bhubaneswar during 2018-19 and 2019-20. The experiment was laid out in a Factorial Randomized Block Design with 24 treatment combinations and 2 replications. The treatment combinations consist of four levels of spacings (2.0 x 2.0 m, 4.0 x 2.0 m, 4.0 x 4.0 m, 8.0 x 2.0 m) and 6 levels of chemical treatments (Paclobutrazol@0.25, 0.50 and 0.75 g a.i. per meter of canopy spread and KNO3@ 2% and 4%) and a control with water application.  The results revealed that plants spaced at 4.0 x 4.0 m with application of paclobutrazol 0.50 g a.i. recorded maximum flowering intensity (82.48%), fruit set percentage (6.47%) and yield (11.12 kg/tree). Whereas the fruit quality parameters like TSS, acidity, reducing sugar, total sugar, ß carotene content are not significantly influenced by either due to plant spacing or flower inducer such as paclobutrazol and potassium nitrate.