ISHS Acta Horticulturae 662: VII International Symposium on Temperate Zone Fruits in the Tropics and Subtropics
FRUIT SETTING PROBLEMS OF APPLES UNDER CHANGING CLIMATIC SCENARIO OF NORTH-WESTERN HIMALAYAS OF INDIA |
| Authors: | D.R. Gautam, G. Sharma, K.K. Jindal |
| Keywords: | apple, fruit-set, pollination, changing climate |
| Abstract:
Apple is the predominant temperate fruit crop of India which accounts for about 10 per cent of the total fruit production of the country. At present these Delicious group of cultivars mainly Starking Delicious and Red Delicious constitute nearly 80 per cent of apple trees. Although India ranks 10th in world production of apple, yet the decreasing trend in productivity of its orchards, in the last decade due to changing climate scenario has caused a serious concern to the fruit growers and planners of the country. Several factors like inadequate pollinizer proportion, reduction in natural population of pollinating agents, inadequate winter chilling, occurrence of spring frosts, hails and gales, nutrient deficiencies, droughts etc. are the main factors leading to poor fruit setting in Delicious. More than 70 per cent of orchards have less than 20 per cent pollinizer proportion, whereas a minimum of 25 per cent is required in our agroclimatic conditions for good fruit set. Moreover there is lack of diversity in pollinizing cultivars as mainly Golden Delicious and Red Gold are being predominantly used which have attained biennial bearing tendency and their bloom seldom coincides with the flowering period of Delicious cultivars. The population of natural pollinators has gone down due to indiscriminate use of pesticides and deterioration in ecosystem. Managed bee pollination is very limited and available bee hives during bloom hardly meet 2-3 per cent of the demand. All these factors have lead to poor fruit setting of Delicious. | |
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