The major physiological disorder “Fruit cracking” is making fruits unfit for market, which caused an irrecoverable loss for farmer. Here are the causes & control measures for physiological disorder in pomegranate….
Pomegranate is a favorite table fruit in tropical & subtropical regions of the world. In India it is a well-known & widely grown fruit. The fruit is liked for its cool & refreshing juice besides its use as a table fruit. It also possesses various medicinal properties.
Fruit Cracking: It is a serious problem & is more intense under dry conditions of the arid zone. The fully grown mature cracked fruits though sweet, lose it’s keeping quality & becomes unfit for marketing. They are liable to rot qualitatively. The cracked fruits show a reduction in their fruit weight, grain weight & volume of juice.
It is mainly associated with the fluctuation of soil moisture, day & temperature, relative humidity & rind pliability. This disorder may also develop due to boron deficiency in young fruits & moisture imbalance in mature ones.
Prolonged drought causes the hardening of the peel. If this is followed by heavy irrigation or rains the pulp grows & peels cracks. The cracking of fruits is also due to a rise in air temperature during fruit growth & development. It is also a varietal character since the rind thickness & texture are related to proneness to cracking.
The percentage of cracked fruits is also related to the season. Mrig-bahar (June-July) crop is more susceptible to fruit cracking because of variation in humidity. Ordinarily, regular rains are received up to August, so that the fruit continues to develop. If there is a break in rains the growth of the fruit is arrested.
As a result of this dry period, the skin loses its elasticity & becomes hard. When there is rain again the growth restarts resulting in the cracking of fruits because of the lack of elasticity of fruit rind.
Control:
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Adequate & regular irrigation & interculture throughout the bearing period.
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Cultivating tolerant/ less prone types like Karkai, Guleshah, Bedana, KHog&Jalore seedless & avoiding cultivation of susceptible varieties like vellodu, Kabul & khandhari.
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Spraying Borax@ 0.1 to 0.2%.
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Spraying of GA3 in the month of June at 250ppm.
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Planting windbreaks around the garden.
