Effect of Different Levels of Fertilizer on Growth and Yield of F1 Hybrids of Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus Thunb.) under Konkan Agro-climatic Conditions of Maharashtra

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, Dapoli, Dist. Ratnagiri, Maharashtra State (India) during season of the year 2013-2014. In the present investigation, all the F₁ hybrids of watermelon showed significant variation in most of the morphological characters, flowering behaviours, yield attributing characters and yield as well as in physico- chemical parameters studied. The hybrid V₄ (Vigro 286) showed the highest value for fruit weight (3.75 kg), fruit yield per vine (5.97 kg) and per hectare yield (51.90 t). While observing the effect of fertilizer levels, the higher dose of fertilizer F₃ (250:50:00 NPK kg ha-1) showed the highest value for most of the growth characters, flowering behaviours, yield attributing characters and yield as well as physical parameters viz. fruit weight (3.61 kg), number of fruits per vine (1.58), fruit yield per vine (5.73 kg) and yield (49.86 t ha-1). The interaction between the treatments indicated that the F₁ hybrid Vigro 286 showed better performance for the important characters i.e. fruit weight (3.88 kg), fruit yield per vine (6.42 kg), per plot (128.56 kg) and per hectare (55.91 t) when fertilized with 250:50:50 NPK kg ha-1 for maximization of yield of watermelon under Konkan agroclimatic conditions of Maharashtra.