Efficacy of Azotobacter and vermicompost alone and in combination on vegetative growth, flowering and yield of strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) Cv. Chandler

An experiment was carried out in the Department of Horticulture, Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur (U.P.), India, during 2009–10 and 2010–11 to study the efficacy of Azotobacter, vermicompost alone and in combination on vegetative growth, flowering, yield and quality of strawberry cv. Chandler. For this one year old runners of strawberry cv. Chandler were planted at a spacing of 30 x 30 cm on 8–10 cm raised beds of 60 x 60 cm dimension accommodating four plants per bed. There were nine treatments comprising two levels each of Azotobacter (6 and 7 kg/ha) and vermicompost (20 and 30 tonnes/ha) and their combinations along with one control, replicated thrice in randomized block design. Five kg of FYM was applied as a basal dose in all the treatments including control. All the doses of Azotobactor and vermicompost were applied at the time of planting in the field. The data of both the years of experiment were analyzed which clearly shows that combined application of Azotobacter at 7 kg/ha + vermicompost at 30 tonnes/ha significantly increased the height of plant (19.45 and 17.65 cm, respectively), number of leaves (63.60 and 59.60, respectively), number of crowns (7.28 and 6.27, respectively), number of runners (5.34 and 4.32, respectively) per plant, whereas maximum number of flowers (67.48 and 64.51, respectively) and fruits set (39.21 and 36.19, respectively) per plant with increased duration of harvesting (71.04 and 69.02 days, respectively) and minimum number of days taken to produce first flower (56.15 and 54.15days, respectively) and fruit set (6.44 and 5.94days, respectively) with significantly more yield (324.38 and 320.39 g/plant, respectively) were also observed in Azotobacter at 6 kg/ha + vermicompost at 30 tonnes/ha applied plants. So far as the quality characters of berries are concerned, combined application of Azotobacter at 7 kg/ha+ vermicompost at 30 tonnes/ha also produced berries with maximum length (5.01 and 4.51cm, respectively), width (2.64 and 2.34 cm, respectively), weight (9.02 and 8.49 g, respectively), volume (6.12 and 5.82 cc, respectively), TSS (10.31 and 9.29 0Brix, respectively), total sugars (9.73 and 8.74%, respectively), ascorbic acid (56.52 and 54.53 mg/100g edible pulp, respectively) with minimum titratable acidity (0.52 and 0.47%, respectively) contents in comparison to untreated plants under plains of central Uttar Pradesh (India).