Effect of Micronutrients on Enhancing the Quality of Banana (Musa spp.) cv. Red Banana

The investigation on “Effect of micronutrients on enhancing the quality of banana (Musa spp.) cv. Red Banana (AAA)” was carried out to identify a suitable micronutrient concentration for enhancing the quality of triploid banana cultivar Red Banana. The field experiment was laid out in Randomized Block design in three replications with ten treatments. The treatments comprised of various micronutrient concentrations of NRCB Banana Sakthi applied at different intervals The quality parameters viz., total soluble solids, reducing sugar content, non- reducing sugar content, total sugar content and ascorbic acid content was found to be the highest in the treatment which received 2.0 per cent micronutrients at 45 days interval, while the control registered the least values for all the quality parameters. Application of 2.0 per cent micronutrients at 45 DI (T8) increased the TSS (20.62 0Brix), reducing sugar content (7.25 per cent), non- reducing sugar content (7.39 per cent), total sugar content (14.64 per cent), ascorbic acid content (1.53 mg 100g-1) and reduced the acidity content (0.24 per cent). The least values for TSS (17.62 0 Brix), reducing sugar content (5.19 per cent), non- reducing sugar content (4.84 per cent), total sugar content (10.03 per cent) and ascorbic acid (0.37 mg 100g-1) was recorded in T10 (Control). Thus the study concluded that application of 2.0 per cent micronutrients at 45 days interval can be recommended as the best practice for enhancing the quality of Red Banana (AAA).