Fundamentals of Horticulture (2+1)

High Density Plantation

• Planting density in general depends on kind of fruit tree, its growth habit, rootstock utilized, pruning and training needs and rainfall of the area and soil type.
• However, recommended planting densities in fruit crops results in under utilization of interspace during early stage of orchard’s life.
• This makes orcharding unattractive, particularly on small holdings because of long gestation period before giving returns and soil management problematic for vacant space.
• Therefore, high density planting, planting more than optimum number of plants per unit area, is being-considered as soil management strategy for making maximum use of land to achieve high yields in the early periods of orchard life along with ease in its management.
• This has been successful in fruit crops like apple, pear, banana, pineapple, mango, guava, citrus, ber and pomegranate.
• This can be achieved through the use of one of the following factors like dwarf genotypes, dwarfing rootstock, interstock, pruning and training, use of retardants, adjustment of planting geometry and induction of viral infection.

Fruit	Variety	Spacing	System of planting	Number of plants
Mango	Amrapali	2.5 x 2.5 m	Triangular system	1600
	Dashehari	3.0 x 2.5 m	Rectangular	1333
Citrus	Kinnow	6 x 6 feet	Square system using trior citrange as a rootstock	3025
		8 x 8 feet	Karna Khatta as rootstock	1780
		10 x 10 feett	Soh Sarkar as rootstock	1111
Banana	Cavendish group	1.2 x 1.2 m	Square System	6944
		1.0 x 1.0 x 2.0 m	Paired row system	6666
Pineapple		25 x 60 x 75 cm	Double row system	63000
Apple	Spur type on rootstock MM 111, MM 109	4 x 4 m	Square system	625
	Non spur type MM 106, MM 109	5 x 5 m	Square system	400
	Spur type on MM 106, M7	3 x 3 m	Square system	1111
	Non spur type on M9	2 x 2 m	Square system	2500
Guava	Aneuploids	3 x 3 m	Square system	1111
	Lucknow-49	6 x 2 m	Square system	833
Papaya	Pusa Nanha	1.25 x 1.25 m	Rectangular system	6400
Acid lime	Kagzi	4.5 x 4.5 m	Square system	484

• Soil is an important but finite natural resource on which agriculture based.
• It is necessary to maintain this in optimum state of productive capacity and put in appropriate use for sustainable crop production.
• Therefore, appropriate (strategy) of management should be adopted depending on crop, climate, topography, resource and socio-economic condition of the farmer.
• In any case management system should be such that quality of this resource is improved for which right decisions are necessary after proper evaluation of all the factors involved.