Comparison of Cultar and Austar as source of Paclobutrazol for flowering and fruiting in Kesar mango.
Kumbhar A. R., Gunjate R. T., Thimaiah I. M., Amin S. M.
Author Affiliation: Horticultural Department, Reliance Agro Initiatives, Reliance Greens, Motikhavadi - 361 140, Dist: Jamnagar (Gujarat), India.
: 403-406
Abstract : Field studies were conducted in Gujarat, India, to compare Cultar and Austar as sources of paclobutrazol for the induction of flowering and fruiting in mango cv. Kesar. It was seen from the data that both Cultar (87.2%) as well as Austar (85.4%) were slightly more effective in inducing flowering in mango trees than the untreated control trees (83.6%). Moreover, both products were effective in inducing earlier flowering by 20-30 days than the control. However, Cultar and Austar were at par with each other in their effectiveness on induction of flowering and earliness of flowering. The induction of flowering in all the treatments including the control was much higher due to prolonged lower temperatures causing better induction of flowering. The use of Cultar and Austar was significantly better in getting more number of mango fruits per tree (65.25 and 70.52 fruits/tree, respectively) compared to the control (44.73 fruits/tree). However, there was no statistically significant difference in the number of fruits harvested from trees treated with these 2 products. Therefore, the conclusion from these results was that Cultar and Austar were equally effective in inducing flowering and fruiting in Kesar mango under Jamnagar conditions. These results have been confirmed by the large scale use of Austar in the field during the 2004-05 flowering season. Therefore, one can use either Cultar or Austar for flowering and fruiting in mango. At present, Austar is available in the market at prices 40% cheaper than Cultar and hence mango growers can save substantial amounts by using paclobutrazol in other brands like Austar.