EVALUATION OF VARIETIES AND STANDARDIZATION OF PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES IN BER (ZIZIPHUS MAURITIANA) UNDER RAINFED VERTISOLS

Ber is considered as the King of arid zone fruits, because of its adaptations to tolerate the biotic and abiotic stresses prevailing under rain fed conditions.
It is cultivated in arid and semiarid areas of India.
Crop diversification through arid fruits like ber ensured some production during the drought year when traditional crops fail.
Among the commercial varieties evaluated Kaithali provided consistently significant higher yields compared to other varieties.
Pruning ber in the month of February recorded higher yield.
As regards the in situ water harvesting, increasing the catchments area 2.5 times of normal area with 5% slope exhibited higher yield compared to 1.5, 2.0 times of normal area, normal area with and without slope.
The yield contributing factors were also positively improved.
Dense planting of ber with a spacing of 8×3 m recorded higher yield per unit area than other spacing’s used.
In the trail on weed management, use of herbicides pendimethylene and glyphosate effectively controlled the weeds and increased the fruit yield also.

I International Jujube Symposium

S. Anbu, S. Balasubramanyan, K. Venkatesan, M. Selvarajan, R. Duarisingh

commercial cultivars, pruning, in situ water harvest, dense planting, weed management, fruit yield

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2009.840.5