Effect of last irrigation and field curing on yield and post-harvest losses of rabi onion (Allium cepa).

摘要

An experiment was conducted in Jaipur, Rajasthan, during rabi the seasons of 1999-2000 and 2000-01 to determine the effect of last irrigation and field curing on the yield and postharvest losses of rabi onion. There were 4 treatments of last irrigation, i.e. just before harvesting, 5, 10 and 15 days before harvesting, and 3 field curing treatments, i.e. no curing, 3 and 5 days curing. After field curing, the onion bulbs were kept for four months up to September under ambient conditions to assess the postharvest losses. The application of last irrigation in onion crop five days before harvesting recorded the maximum marketable bulb yield of 106.51 and 155.46 q/ha after storage with a minimum loss of 8.72 and 10.05% in field curing as well as of 34.06 and 33.54% during storage in 1999-2000 and 2000-01, respectively, which was significantly superior over irrigation applied just before harvesting. Field curing of onion bulbs for three days produced significantly higher marketable yield of 103.30 and 147.75 q/ha after storage with a minimum loss of 15.08 and 16.9% in field curing and of 30.78 and 32.23% during storage in 1999-2000 and 2000-01, respectively, over no curing.