EFFECT OF INORGANIC AND ORGANIC FERTILIZERS ON FRUIT QUALITY AND YIELD ATTRIBUTES IN GUAVA CV. SARDAR.

The present investigation entitled ?Effect of inorganic and organic fertilizers on fruit quality and yield attributes in guava cv. Sardar? was carried out in a well maintained Guava orchard, Khalsa College, Amritsar during 2016-17. In the trial, 18 guava trees of cv. Sardar with uniform size and vigour were selected. The selected trees were fertilized with Recommended dose of fertilizers i.e. 600 g urea, 2000 g super phosphate and 1000 g muriate of potash, Vermicompost @ 16 kg/tree, Jeevamrit @ 10 litre/tree, Azotobacter and Azospirillum @ 100g/tree. Fruits were analyzed for their physical and biochemical parameters at Horticulture laboratory of Department of Horticulture, Khalsa College. It was revealed from the study that trees fertilized with recommended dose of NPK yielded fruits with significant fruit length (9.2 cm), fruit breadth (8.72 cm), fruit weight (222.43 g) and also the fruits attained high organoleptic rating, excellent fruit colour and minimum fuit firmness (2.93 kg/cm2). The fruit obtained from trees treated with recommended dose of inorganic fertilizers had maximum TSS (12.19%), reducing sugars (5.43%), total sugars (7.97%), non-reducing sugars (2.54%), ascorbic acid content (203.91 mg/100 g of pulp) and minimum titratable acidity (0.54%). Also, the guava trees under treatment T1 took minimum days (98.33) for fruit maturation and yielded maximum number of fruits (282.00) per tree with the fruit yield of 62.73 kg. Hence, inorganic fertilizers were found to be the most efficacious in encouraging the quality and yield of Sardar guava fruits.