Effect of nitrogenous fertilizers and farmyard manure on yield, quality and shelf-life of Nagpur mandarin

Abstract

The effect of N viz. 0, 200, 400, 600 and 800 g/plant/year through urea and farmyard manure appplication on yield, quality and shelf-life were studied. Differential N levels were supplemented with doses of P, K and farmyard manure. The farmyard manure @ 25 kg/plant/year alone was kept as the control. Application of N significantly increased the yield of Nagpur mandarin with increasing N rates as compared to farmyard manure alone. There was no adverse effect of chemical N on physico-chemical properties of fruits. Storage of fruits for 12 days at 20–28°C; 50–70% relative humidity and for 80 days at 5°-6°C; 85–90% relative humidity revealed that there was no adverse effect of chemical N (up to 600 g/plant/year) supplemented with P, K and farmyard manure on weight loss and decay (%) in Nagpur mandarin. The shelf-life of fruits was not significantly better when fruits were grown with farmyard manure alone.