Effect of watering frequency on fruit cracking in ‘Nam Hom’ coconut
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Abstract
Fruit cracking in young coconut has been the physiological disorder that makes the grower in
Thailand losing both production and income. Although, causes of this disorder have not been known
obviously but we found that the difference between day-night temperature and day-night relative
humidity in the duration of fruit cracking were wider than those in the duration of non-fruit cracking. Besides,
the fluctuation of relative humidity in the duration of fruit cracking was more than those in the duration of
non-fruit cracking. Thus, the fluctuation of climate may effect on the coconut fruit cracking. The objective
of this research was to investigate effect of watering frequency on fruit cracking reduction in ‘Nam Hom’
coconut. The experiment was conducted in coconut orchard at Damnoen Saduak district, Ratchaburi
province during November 2013 – March 2014. The results showed that the watering frequency at 2 and
3 day per time significantly reduced the percentage of fruit cracking compared to control (7 day per time)
in December 2013, January 2014 and March 2014. However, in some sampling date, there was no
significant difference in the percentage of fruit cracking but more watering frequency trended to give the
less percentage of fruit cracking than control. Moreover, the data analysis of percentage of fruit cracking
averaged from all of sampling date showed that the watering frequency at 2 and 3 day per time
significantly reduced the percentage of fruit cracking (38.70 and 29.34 %, respectively) compared to
control (7 day per time) (60.40 %). However, the watering frequency did not have any effect on external
and internal coconut fruit quality. Therefore, more watering frequency might reduce the fruit cracking in
‘Nam Hom’ coconut.
Article Details
King Mongkut's Agricultural Journal
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