Study the Effect of Different Pollination Techniques on Date Palm Production

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is a dioecious species therefore manual or mechanical pollination must be carried out to obtain better yield and quality of fruits. An experiment was conducted at Date Palm Research Centre, Agricultural Research Station, S.K. Rajasthan Agricultural University, Bikaner from March 2019 to July 2020 to evaluation of most efficient technique of hand pollination. The female spath of Halawy cultivar were pollinated with various pollen techniques viz., inserting 5-6 strands/bunch (T-1), 5% pollen dust (T-2), 10% pollen dust (T-3), 15% pollen dust (T-4), 1 g/l suspension of pollen grain (T-5), 2 g/l suspension of pollen grain (T-6), 3 g/l suspension of pollen grain (T-7) and 4 g/l suspension of pollen grain (T-8). All the treatments were arranged in randomized block design. The maximum fruit set (77.13%) was recorded in treatment of inserting 5-6 strands/bunch (T-1), whereas, minimum fruit drop (12.87%) was recorded with 3 g/l pollen suspension treatment (T-7). The maximum yield of fruit/bunch (6.87 kg), yield/palm (38.16 kg), fruit weight (7.31 g), fruit length (3.86 cm), fruit diameter (2.02 cm), volume of fruit (8.11 cc), and pulp weight (6.08 g) was recorded with 3 g/l pollen suspension treatment (T-7). The minimum fruit drop percentage (12.87%) and number of fruits/kg (135.13) were also recorded with 3 g/l pollen suspension treatment (T-7).