Plantation Crops

Button shedding

Button shedding
• It is usual phenomenon to notice dropping of nuts in their very initial stages of maturity (3 to 4 months stage). It is the natural phenomenon exhibited by plant to protect itself from exhaustion.

Reasons and Remedies for button shedding in coconut
•  Nutritional Imbalance / deficiencies: NPK recommended for coconut is 500 : 330 : 1200 g per palm per year. Usually full dose of NPK is applied from 4 th year onwards. Application of K and N minimized the incidence of button shedding in coconut.
•  Unfavorable conditions :

  a) Moisture: Deficiency / stress or water logging / excess of water promote button shedding
  b) Hard pan: A rocky strata at shallow ( < 1.5 m) depth.
•  Pathogen and insect: Some pathogens especially fungi are known to be associated with the button shedding. They include

  Colletotrichum spp,
  Phytophthora spp.,
  Botrydiploidia spp.,
  Cause premature nut drop in coconut.

Barren Nut
Insects viz.,
•  Coried bug (The attacked buttons do not develop resulting in immature nut fall.) The nuts if developed may become barren.
•  Eriophid mites and
•  Rodents problems (Attack tender nuts resulting in immature nut fall.) are also results in nut drop.
•  Defective pollination and fertilization: Many of the talls are cross pollinated. There may be inadequate pollination possibly due to high temperature or hot winds which cause desiccation or drying of the stigmatic surface. For this we can;

  a) Keep bee hives
  b) Spray 2,4-D @ 60 PPM to improve fruit set and yield.
•  Inherent capacity / Genetic make up ( inborn nature ) of the palm : We can resort to selective felling and replanting.