Horticulture and Vegetable Production: Classification, Propagation and Planting Density
Horticulture questions cover vegetable classification, propagation methods, training and pruning, protected cultivation and Rajasthan's fruit and spice specialities.
Classifying vegetables
- Solanaceous: tomato, brinjal and chilli; potato is a tuber crop of the same family.
- Cucurbits: cucumber, melon, watermelon, bottle gourd and bitter gourd; most are monoecious and depend on bee pollination.
- Cole crops: cabbage, cauliflower and knol-khol. Root crops: carrot, radish and beetroot. Bulb crops: onion and garlic. Leafy: spinach and methi.
Propagation methods
- Seed for most vegetables and annual flowers.
- Cuttings for rose and bougainvillea; layering for guava and litchi.
- Budding for ber (shield budding) and aonla (patch budding); grafting for mango and citrus.
- Mango is veneer grafted in July-August; ber is budded in June-July on a desi rootstock.
Rajasthan's horticulture
- Fruits: ber, aonla, pomegranate, guava, citrus, date palm in Jaisalmer and Barmer, and custard apple.
- Spices and industrial crops: cumin, coriander, fenugreek, ajwain, isabgol in the Nagaur-Jalore belt and henna of Sojat.
- Flowers: rose around Ajmer and Pushkar, marigold; capsicum, cucumber and tomato under polyhouse and shade net with drip and plastic mulch.
Training and pruning
Training builds the plant's framework in the early years; pruning removes plant parts later to regulate fruiting and improve fruit size and quality.
Worked example
A ber orchard is planted at 5 m by 5 m. Area per plant = 25 square metres. Plants per hectare = 10,000 divided by 25 = 400. If roads and channels occupy one-fifth of the field, the plantable area is 9,200 square metres and only 368 plants fit.
Traps
- Mixing training with pruning.
- Dividing by 1,000 instead of 10,000 when converting hectares to square metres.
- Naming a temperate fruit for the plains; chilling requirement is met only in the hilly south around Mount Abu.