Author(s):

Niranjan Singh and DP Sharma

Abstract: Apple orchards planted in late sixties in Himanchal Pradesh and North Western Himalayan region have shown symptoms of declining productivity as these plants have completed their economic life span. Due to limited land and choice of crops for smaller micro climatic niches and incomparable economic equivalence of other fruits with apple, orchardists are compelled to replant old apple orchard sites. There has been substantial increase in the proportion of declining orchards which need to be changed. Therefore, standardization of suitable agro-techniques to combat replant problem in apple for better field survival rate and productivity under replant conditions for sustainability of apple industry in the state. In present study there were 20 treatments comprising of four apple rootstocks i.e. Seedling, M.793, MM.111 and M.7 and five different treatments i.e. control, soil fumigation, PGPR, biocontrol and combined (Soil fumigation + PGPR + Biocontrol) with three replications. The pooled data over the years 2015 and 2016 reveled that M.793 rootstock had significantly maximum plant growth and vigour parameters, soil enzymatic activities and microbial counts. Among the treatments, highest growth and vigour parameters, soil enzymatic activities and microbial counts were recorded maximum in combined treatment. The interaction between rootstocks and treatments revealed that combinations of M.793 × combined treatment recorded maximum growth and vigour traits dehydrogenase activity, urease activity, phosphatase activity, phytase activity, bacterial counts, fungal counts and actinomycetes counts compared to other rootstocks and treatment combinations under replant situations, which can be exploited for the management of replant problem in apple.

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