ABSTRACT
Ber is an indigenous delicious, nursing fruit that grows widely throughout the India. Heavy fruit drops fruits due to several factors like moisture and 316nutritional stress, root damage, hormonal imbalance, high wind velocity, and heavy pathogenic infestation, thus showing a declining trend in ber production over the year. Keeping these concerns in mind, a replicated field experiment was conducted during 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 to determine the effect of foliar application of growth regulators and micronutrients on fruit setting, yield, and economics of popular ber cv. “BAU Kul-1” at the Horticulture Research Station, Mondouri, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidya-laya, West Bengal, India. The ber trees under investigation were subjected to 11 treatments combinations as follows: GA3 @ 10 and 20 mg/L, NAA @ 10 and 20 mg/L, 2,4-D @ 5 and 10 mg/L, ZnSO4 at 0.5 and 1%, H3BO3 @ 0.2 and 0.4%, and control (water spray only). These chemicals were thoroughly sprayed twice immediately after fruit set at 15 days interval. The results of 2 years of investigation revealed that the application of 2,4-D @ 10 mg/L recorded highest fruit set (48.80%), followed by ZnSO4 at 1% and NAA at 10 mg/L. Maximum fruit retention % (42.83%) and total no. of fruits tree−1 (514) were obtained with the application of NAA @ 20 mg/L, which was significantly higher than rest of the treatments. The application of GA3 @ 20 mg/L recorded significantly higher yield (30.67 kg/tree) and economic returns over the control during both years of the experiment.
