Efficacy of Azotobacter and PSB on vegetative growth, flowering, yield and quality of strawberry cv. Chandler

An experiment was carried out at the Department of Horticulture, Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur (U.P.), India, during the years 2008–09 and 2009–10 to study the efficacy of Azotobacter, PSB alone and in combination on vegetative growth, flowering, yield and quality of strawberry cv. Chandler. One year old runner of strawberry cv. Chandler were planted at the spacing of 30 x 30 cm on 8–10 cm raised beds of 60 x 60 cm accommodating four plants per bed. There were nine treatments comprising two levels each of Azotobacter and PSB (5 and 6 kg/ha) and their combinations along with one control, replicated thrice in randomized block design. Five kg of FYM was applied as a basal dose in all the treatments. The data of both the years of experiment were analysed which clearly show that combined application of Azotobacter and PSB (each at 6 kg/ha) significantly increased the plant height (19.66 and 18.92 cm, respectively), number of leaves (65.75 and 62.88, respectively), no. of crowns (7.21 and 7.13, respectively), runners (5.22 and 5.30, respectively), number of flowers (69.05 and 65.50, respectively) and fruits set (38.80 and 36.97, respectively) per plant during both the years of experimentation. Maximum duration of harvesting (70.91 and 70.90 days, respectively), minimum number of days taken to produce first flower (57.69 and 56.53 days, respectively) and fruit set (6.36 and 5.88 days, respectively) with significantly more yield (346.56 and 297.78 g/plant, respectively) were also observed in combined Azotobacter and PSB (each at 6 kg/ha) fertilized plants. As far the quality characters of berries are concerned, combined Azotobacter and PSB (each at 6 kg/ha) fertilized plants produced berries with maximum length, width, weight, volume, TSS, total sugars, ascorbic acid with minimum titratable acidity contents in comparison to other treatments under plains of Uttar Pradesh.