Effect of Water Deficit at Various Growth Stages on Quality and Yield of Pineapple cv. Phulae

Abstract

Effects of water deficit at various growth stages on yield and quality of pineapple cv. Phulae was studied at Chiang Rai Horticultural Research Center, Chiang Rai Province, between the Year 2016 to 2018. The experimental design was RCB with 4 replications of 6 treatments. Treatments consisted of the period of water deficit at: early growth stage, late growth stage, flower forcing stage, fruit development stage, fruit enlargement stage and pre-harvest stage. The experiment was carried out in two consecutive seasons. Ratoons of the first season were repetitively used in the second season. It was found that no-watering
in early growth stage affected D-leaf length, leaf length was shorter in both seasons. No significant differences nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and boron content in D- leaf were found in both seasons and each water deficit period. Fruit weight reduces significantly if water deficit occurred at pre-harvest stage, the average weight were 1.23 and 0.52 kg/fruit in seasons 1 and 2 respectively, but the fruits had better quality, both in taste and TSS content than those from other treatments. In addition, the lack of water at vegetative stage made fruits quality more unsatisfactory than at fruits development stage,
while the lack of water at flower forcing stage had not affected the pineapple fruit quality.