Effect of Organic and Chemical Fertilizers on Vegetative Growth and Fruit Characteristics of Banana, Grand Nain and Dwarf Cavendish Group

Abstract

Banana is one of the oldest tropical fruits cultivated by man from prehistoric times in India with great socio-economic significance, interwoven in the cultural heritage of the country. Banana fruit production in the Sudan, cover a wide spectrum of activities ranging from local utilization of fruit with self-sufficiency through small farming for local market to large plantation for export. It is one of most important fruits of Sudan. Therefore, a field experiment was conducted at two locations in Aliab, River Nile State during 2009/10 and 2010/11 seasons in split plot design with four replications. Assigned to the main plots two varieties of banana (Cavendish dwarf and Grand Nain, AAA) and to the sub –plots the fertilizer treatments arranged randomly, consisted of Urea., NPK, and combination of organic fertilizers, compost and manure. The results indicate that there were highly significant differences in pseudo stem length in the two cultivars due to fertilizer treatments especially chemical and organic fertilizers, also there were significant effect in fruit parameters (weight of bunch, finger and number of hands per bunch and finger per bunch) due to the fertilizer treatment at least in one season.