CANOPY MANAGEMENT IN POMEGRANATE.

The pomegranate, botanical name Punica granatum, is a fruit-

bearing deciduous shrub or small tree in the family Lythraceae that
grows between 5 and 8 m (16 and 26 ft) tall.
The fruit is typically in season in the Northern Hemisphere from
September to February, and in the Southern Hemisphere from
March to May. As intact arils or juice, pomegranates are used in
baking, cooking, juice blends, meal garnishes, smoothies,
and alcoholic beverages, such as cocktails and wine.
The pomegranate originated in the region of modern-day Iran, and
has been cultivated since ancient times throughout
the Mediterraneanregion and northern India. It was introduced
into Spanish America in the late 16th century and
into California by Spanish settlers in 1769. Today, it is widely
cultivated throughout the Middle
East and Caucasus region, north and tropical Africa, the Indian
subcontinent, Central Asia, the drier parts of southeast Asia, and
parts of the Mediterranean Basin. It is also cultivated in parts
of Arizona and California. In the 20th and 21st centuries, it became
more common in the commercial markets of Europe and
the Western Hemisphere.

Canopy Management
Manipulation of tree vigor and maximum utilization of sunlight,
results in increased productivity and quality. Basic principles of
canopy management are maximum utilization Of light, Avoidance
of built up of microclimate congenial for the diseases and pests.
Helps in convenience in carrying out cultivation operations. Also
the inter space can be utilized for raising annuals as intercrops.

Training
Pomegranate plant is bushy in nature and throws considerable
number of shoots near the ground level. Retaining all these shoots
at the base increases crowding of tree frame and incidence of shoot

borers and diseases. Considering these factors. keeping 3-4 stems

from the base was found satisfactory for maintaining good
productivity as well as proper health of the plant.
Training is done only to give shape to the tree, At the time of
planting all the side shoots are removed. Young plants are allowed
to grow into a bush with number of main shoots arising at the
ground level. Then, they are properly trained to form a single stem
with a number Of well-distributed scaffold limbs. The plant is
topped at a height of 60-70 cm and the side shoots 4 to 6 in number
well distributed along the main stem are allowed to arise from
about 40-50 cm from the ground level. As and when the plant
becomes too thick, thinning out and removal of very low branches
are followed, The plants are supported by trellises to provide
support to the branches thereby, avoiding branch breaking.
Training is done systematically during initial 3-4 years of plant
growth. This helps to get uniform plants in the orchard. Once
plants attain 3-4 years of age; the plant growth is tremendous.
Therefore, to control the growth, to avoid cris crossing of twigs
and also to allow the air and light to the canopy; training is
necessarily taken up, Sometimes non-bearing twigs and water
shoots along with dried and diseased twigs have to be removed by
pruning.
(If pruning is not effected manually, it can be achieved by using
1000-ppm spray of Lihosin once or TIBA 500ppm twice or Maleic
hydrazide 500-ppm twice. These sprays can reduce the plant
growth and does the job Of pruning).
The systematic work on this aspect was initiated at CHES Vejalput
where manual pruning was carried out. Pruning in pomegranate
was attempted to initiate new growth on 5 year old plants. The
plants were pruned in the second half of May. Two types of pruning
i.e. heavy (Removing around 5-7 kg fresh wt/ plant and light
(removing 2-3 kg of fresh wood/ plant) was attempted, Under
rainfed conditions. Sprouting started after 3-4 weeks of pruning.
The subsequent flowering was however was delayed.

The mean fresh and dry wt Of biomass removed in heavy pruning

per plant was 5.67 and 2.92 kg/ plant respectively, where as, in light
pruning it was 290 and 1.65 kg/ plant respectively. New shoot
growth as evidenced by increase in shoot length, diameter, fresh
and dry weight reveled that heavy pruning resulted in higher shoot
growth compared to light pruning and control (no pruning) similar trend was
recorded in leaf growth

ORCHARD REJUVENATION
The Old orchards become non-productive due to incidence Of pest
and diseases and neglect, once the orchard becomes Old its
productivity goes down, and it is general tendency of the farmers to
neglect the orchard. In pomegranate when the survey was
conducted it was observed that 25 percent Of the old orchards
become unproductive due to loss of vigor in the plant. Owing to
heavy incidence of pest and diseases.
There is still scope to review production from these orchards
through intensive care, Rejuvenation can be bone by mechanical
measures, chemical measures as well as by pruning of plants. Work
carried out on non-selective pruning at CHES Vejalpur has shown
encouraging results, Fifteen-year-old orchard that was showing the
signs of decline mainly due to drying of old branches resulting in
sparse flowering and fruiting was used for the study. To over come
the situation non-selective pruning of the orchard was undertaken,
The plants were headed back to 30 cm, 60cm, 90em,and 120 cm
above ground level in the month of April, no pruning acted as a
control.
The cut ends were sprayed with chlorpyriphos 3ml/lit along with
bavistin lgm / lit to control the incidence of termites and various
pest and diseases. New sprouts emerged after 20-25 days of
pruning. Number of new sprouts per plant was reduced to 8 to 10,
by allowing two to three healthy sprouts per branch to balance the
framework of the plant. On the onset of monsoon the growth of the
plant picked up and after one year the plant height was on par with
that of control plants. In due course the plant growth slowed down
due to diversification of food material to flowering and fruiting,
Mean Shoot diameter increased at a faster pace after the initial
setback.
Fruit set in the initial years was reduced in the first year of pruning

only 19 fruit / plant were set which surpassed the control in second
year itself (101 no/ plant) in plants pruned to 30 cm from ground
level. It out performed control in the years to follow Similar trend
was recorded in respect of number of fruit retained / plant in other
treatments. Maximum number of fruit were retained in plants
pruned to 30 cm from ground level, Yield kg/ plant was reduced in
the first year after pruning (81.18% reduction) in treatment pruning
to 30 cm from wound level. The yield/ plant however has surpassed
control in second year itself. The increase was to the tune of
16.96%, 3294% and 26.10% in 2nd, 3rd and 4th year of pruning to
30 cm level.
Pruning plants to 30 cm from ground level was the best to
rejuvenate the old pomegranate orchard and can be recommended
as standard practice to rejuavation Old orchards (Hiwale, 2007),

Fruit thinning

Fruit thinning is one of the tools in the hands of Horticulturist to

reduce the burden of the plant and avoid the use Of stored food
material in one time, The Sink source relationship plays important
role in managing the crop load. Fruit thinning helps in maintaining
the sustainability Of production over the years particularly in fruit
trees where, life span is long. By reducing the number of fruits the
crop load can be evenly distributed all over the plant, there by-
avoiding branch braking, better exposure of fruits to sunlight, which
helps in better fruit development.

Effect Of thinning Of fruit on Yield and physico- chemical

characters of pomegranate Ganesh.
 (Hivvole, 2008)

Work carriedout at CHES Vejalpur, under semiarid rainfed

conditions revealed that fruit weight showed maximum increase
over control (79.92 percent) when 25 fruits/ plant were retained; it
was 69.08 percent with 50 fruit and 41.60 percent with 75 fruits per
plant, However; there was no change in percent juice content and
acidity of fruits. T.S,S, content was maximum when less number of
fruits/ tree were retained (17.081' Brix), showing a decreasing trend
as number Of fruits per plant increased. It was observed that keeping
75 fruits per plant produced maximum yield per hectare (45.64 Q)
compared to control (40.96 G), Thinning fruit to 25 and 50
respectively numbers though resulted in reduction in yield by 54.98
percent and 12.56 percent. However fruit thinning produced good
size fruit of grade, fetching better prices in the market. Overall
keeping 50 fruits per plant was found to be economically viable
preposition to the farmers as the economic returns were highest
(Rs.10670/-) compared to control (Rs.4692/-), (Hiwale, 2008).

HIGHDENSITY ORCHARDING AND CANOPY

MANAGEMENT

High Density Orcharding.

India is the second largest producer of the fruits (41.5 million tones)
in the world, Still the productivity of almost all the fruits in India is
very low (12 tones / ha) as compared to other fruit growing
countries Of the world. It is a major cause Of concern to our
scientists, extension personnel and orchardi Sts, Many reasons may
be attributed to the low productivity and to solve this problem our
scientists have to develop high yielding varieties/ hybrids, resistant
to the biotic and abiotic stresses and develop better agro-techniques
for realizing the maximum potential of the fruit cultivation in India.
Though, we have achieved this distinction, but the per capita
consumption of the fruits in our country is still 80 g/ day due to our
huge population, which is far below from the recommendation of
120g/capita/day. There is little scope to convert the existing area to
fruit cultivation owing to the fact that our first requirement is to
have sufficient food. There fore the major area expansion will be on
marginal degraded land where arid and semiarid fruits play a major

role, as they can be grown on these lands successfully as they are

drought hardy can with stand biotic and abiotic stresses and salinity
better, Therefore there is need to increase plant population/ unit area
i.e. giving high density orcharding,

Why High Density Planting?

 The available land area for the fruit cultivation is becoming a

limiting factor,
 Rapid urbanization, Fragmentation of land holding,
Industrialization.
 High management cost.
 Restriction on water usea 5, Labour problems.
 Maximum possible returns with the minimum costs in the shortest
possible time.

Basic Approaches in the High Density Planting

 Accommodation of the maximum possible number of the plants
per unit area to get the maximum profit per unit of the tree volume
without impairing the soil fertility status.
 Availability of a dwarf plant is the first prerequisite for
establishing any high- density orchard.
 It may be achieved by different approaches like use Of the dwarf
cultivar, dwarfing rootstock/ interstock and with the use of the
growth retardants.
 Closer spacing.
 Growth regulation by training and pruning
 Use Of plant growth retardants.
 Use Of the mechanical devices.
 Cropping system models and crop management practices.
Under the circumstances, the concept of the high-density orcharding
has become extremely significant This concept has been successfully
applied in a number of the arid and semiarid fruits by using various
techniques in India. Accordingly, efforts have been made in the

different parts Of the world to find out the optimum spacing for the
different fruit plants along with the related technologies so as to
derive the maximum return per unit area.

High-density orcharding results in early bearing and also helping in

minimizing weed problem. However, the productive life of orchard is
reduced due to dense canopies. which will not allow sunlight
penetration resulting in slow decline. This problem can be overcome
by removing plant in alternate row, The other methods, which can be
used in overcoming this problem, are training and selective pruning.
Productivity of almost all the fruits in India is low as compared to
Other fruit growing countries of the world, To over come this
problem in pomegranate high-density orcharding in ev. Ganesh has
been standardized under Maharashtra condition. To obtain higher
production per unit area maximum number of plants were
accommodated per hectare. High destiny plantation at 5X2.2m under
semi arid condition resulted in times higher yield as compared to
normal spacing Of m in 6 to 7 year Old orchard.