Abstract

The experiment was laid out in a farmer's field at Keela Thanneerpalli village, Kulithalai block, Karur district, Tamil Nadu during the year 2018. The treatments comprised different combinations of farm yard manure (FYM), recommended dose of fertilizers (RDF), zinc sulphate (ZnSO4), zinc solubilizing bacteria (ZSB) and vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizae (VAM). The results revealed that the maximum values for the yield and its attributes viz., number of fruits/plant (16.95 and 16.67), fruit length (11.96 and 11.90 cm), fruit grith (1.71 and 1.68 cm), single fruit weight (16.65 and 16.24 g), fruit yield (270.90 and 267.40 g/plant) and fruit yield/plot (26.41 and 25.40 kg) during first and second season, respectively) were recorded in the plots which received the application of FYM + RDF + ZSB + VAM + 40 kg ZnSO4/ha. This treatment was closely followed by the treatment combination FYM+RDF+ZSB+VAM+30 kg ZnSO4/ha and found to be on par with the best treatment.