YIELD AND FRUIT-QUALITY OF THE SUPERPLATANO GROWN ON AN ULTISOL WITH SUPPLEMENTAL IRRIGATION

The French-type Superplatano (Musa, AAB) clone planted on a highly wea thered soil under supplemental irrigation was subjected to various bun ch (raceme) treatments.Two weeks after bunch emergence the immature ra cemes were pruned to either four, five or six uppermost hands. Subsequ ently, same of the pruned racemes were sprayed with a growth regulator (Pro-Gibb) solution containing 50 ml/L of gibberellic acid, whereas o thers were not sprayed. Both sprayed and unsprayed bunches were immedi ately bagged and others were left unbagged.The false-horn type Maricon go plantain with unpruned, unsprayed and unbagged racemes was used as a control. Growth regulator spraying and bagging had no significant ef fect on bunch and fruit traits. Pruning, however, significantly affect ed bunch number of fruits and weight, bunch mean fruit weight, and ind ividual fruit traits in the distal hand. A reduction in number of hand s from six to four substantially increased bunch mean fruit weight, th ickness, length and weight of individual fruits in the distal hand.The Superplatano with the bunch pruned to five hands averaged 66 marketab le fruits and weighed 20.7 kg. Bunch mean fruit weight was 314 g, well over the 270 g weight criterion used for local marketable grade fruit s. These bunches contained significantly more fruits and were heavier than the unpruned Maricongo racemes with 7.4 hands. Only bunches prune d to four hands, however, had a bunch mean fruit weight similar to tha t of the unpruned Maricongo. Fruits in the distal hand of the Superpla tano bunch pruned to either four or five hands compared in thickness, outer length and weight to those corresponding to the same numerical h and of the unpruned Maricongo raceme.