Nutritional Disorders of Peach and Their Control

摘要

PEACH is an important fruit crop of Punjab and it occupies an area of 3570 ha with a production of 53500 tonnes annually. Although it can be grown on light as well as comparatively heavy soils, it prefers medium textured, fertile and well drained soils. For its successful cultivation peach requires all essential nutrient elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulphur, iron, manganese, zinc, copper, boron and molybdenum. Soil is the natural source for the supply of all these nutrient elements. While some of them like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium are needed by the plants in greater quantities, and are called as major elements, other like iron, zinc, manganese, copper, boron and molybdenum etc. are needed in very small quantities and are called as minor or micro-elements. Each one of these essential nutrient elements is equally important for satisfactory plant peit'ormauce, and has a threshhold value in the leaves below which the plant will showdeficiency symptoms. If these deficiencies are not corrected in time, the profitability of peach orchard declines. Luckily deficiencies of all the above noted nutrient elements are not encountered in the peach orchards in the Punjab. It is due to the fact that majority of the farmers use quite regularly the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers. However, they seldom apply in the soil or through the foliage the micronutrients as a result of which deficiencies of these nutrients are seen quiteoften.