Effect of Different Plant Spacings on Growth, Yield and Disease Incidence in Banana CV. Phule Pride

An investigation was carried out in planted banana crop cv. Phule Pride (AAA) to evaluate the effect of different planting distances on growth, durational, bunch, and yield parameters and disease incidence for three successive years (2021-22 to 2023). The experiment was carried out in Randomized Block Design with four replications. The treatments comprised of T1 (1.20 m x 1.20m (6944 Plants per hectare)), T2 (1.35 m x 1.35m (5487 Plants per hectare)), T3 (1.35 m x 1.75m (4233 Plants per hectare)), T4 (1.50 m x 1.35m (4938 Plants per hectare)) and T5 (1.50 m x 1.50m (4444 Plants per hectare)). In general, there was decrease in pseudo stem height, number of functional leaves and leaf area with the decrease in plant spacing, where increase in pseudo stem girth was observed with the decrease in plant spacing. Delay in all the durational parameters namely days to shooting, days to maturity and days harvesting was recorded with the decrease in plant spacing. Number of hands per bunch, number of fingers per bunch, finger length and bunch weight also decreased with the decrease in plant spacing, whereas increase in finger girth was observed with the decrease in plant spacing. The conventional treatment 1.50 m x 1.50m (4444 Plants per hectare)) recoded highest bunch weight (19.40 t/ha) as against the 12.18 t/ha in the treatment T1 (1.20 m x 1.20m (6944 Plants per hectare). As regards the yield (t/ha), all the treatments were on par with each other except T2 (1.35 m x 1.35m (5487 Plants per hectare). Considering all the parameters, it observed that the plant spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5 m accommodating 4444 plants per hectare is found optimum for the banana cv. Phule Pride.