Evaluation of Aonla (<I>Emblica officinalis</I> Gaertn.) Cultivars for Agroforestry System in North-western Himalayas

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to screen suitable 'aonla' cultivars for agri-horti system and quantify low cost moisture conservation practice as weed mulch for aonla grown on wasteland of Doon Valley at Indo-Italian Fruit Development Project at Dhakrani, Dehradun. The four cultivars of aonla with three levels of weed mulch in urd-toria crop rotation were tested on degraded lands of Doon Valley. NA-7 cultivar of aonla was recorded maximum fruit yield (59.8 kgtree^-1 ), grain yield of Urd (6.1 qha^-1 ), Toria (4.5 qha^-1 ) and canopy volume (78.5 m³ ) on such land followed by Chakaiya which attained ^-1canopy volume (90.2 m³ ), fruit yield (58.1 kg tree^-1 ) with minimum grain yield of 'urd' (5.76 qha^-1 ) and 'toria' (4.54 qha^-1 ). NA-7 observed maximum fruit size (43.76 g) followed by NA-10 whereas Chakaiya produced maximum vitamin-C (561.73 mg 100 g fruit^-1 ) and TSS (21.62 %). Weed mulch applied @ 20 kg tree had conserved more moisture and influenced growth and yield attributes in all the cultivars as compared to control plot significantly. Economically, NA-7 is better for intercropping with urd-toria crop rotation as compared to Chakaiya, NA-10 and NA-6. Hence, it is concluded that NA-7 cultivar of aonla is most suited for agrihorti system on degraded lands due to less canopy volume and good returns from the system.