Effect of pruning height and planting distance on fruit quality of guava (Psidium guajava L.) cv. Pant Prabhat

The present investigation was carried out at Horticultural Research Centre, Patherchatta and Department of Horticulture, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar, Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, India during the year 2015. The two factors consisted of pruning height-control 2.0 m standard height unpruned trees (P₀), 1.0 m (P₁), 1.25 m (P₂) and 1.5 m (P₃) from the ground level and planting distance 1.0 × 1.0 m (D₁), 2.0 × 1.0 m (D₂), 2.0 × 1.5 (D₃) and 1.5 × 1.5 m (D₄) having 16 treatment combinations and each replicated four times. The main aim of the present study was to find out the suitable planting distance and effect of pruning height with their interaction effect for better quality guava fruits. Except seed hardness and acidity, the quality parameters like fruit length, diameter, weight, volume, specific gravity, weight of 100 seeds, TSS, TSS: acid ratio, total sugars and ascorbic acid were found maximum in 1.5 m pruning height from the ground level with 2.0 × 1.5 m planting distance. Overall, pruning height 1.5 m and wider spacing of 2.0 × 1.5 m may be adopted by the guava growers for getting better growth and productivity.