Effect of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium Fertilization on Growth, Yield and Quality of Pomegranate 'Kandhari'

Fertilization is a vital input in fruit production to determine yield, size and high quality fruits. To investigate the effect of fertilization on pomegranate 'Kandhari', the plants were fertilized on individual nutrient basis for the period of three years at the experimental orchard of the Department of Horticulture, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. The treatments consisted of four levels of N (0, 20, 40 and 60 g/tree/year), three levels of P2O5 (0, 20, 40 g/tree/year) and four levels of K2O (0, 20, 40 and 60 g/tree/year). The age of trees was three years in 2006. While applying a particular variable fertilizer nutrient, the level of the rest of the nutrients was kept constant. The dose of nutrients was stabilized after five years of age. Nitrogen increased the growth of plant in terms of higher girth, height, spread and volume of tree as compared to rest of the treatments. The number of fruits per plant, largely contributing to the yield, increased linearly with the increase in nitrogen up to maximum level. Similarly, all the P and K treatments also recorded higher yield as compared to yield that was obtained when respective elements were omitted, though the increase was not linear. The fruit size increased under all N, P and K treatments. However, the trees receiving no K produced the lowest fruit size. Quality analysis of the fruits showed maximum TSS with the 40 g N tree(-1) year(-1) treatment, however, the acid content was not significantly affected by any of the treatments. Invariably, all the N, P and K doses improved the rag as well as grain juice percentage. However, high doses of N, P and K slightly reduced the amount of juice percentage but increased seed weight. In overall, N-3, P-1, and K-2 treatments are showing encouraging results as far as fruit weight, yield and quality are concerned.