Abstract
The major problems associated with litchi production are poor fruit retention, pericarp sunburn and cracking. Fruits are also susceptible to insect pest infestations, bird attacks and various pathogens which reduces the commercial value of fruit and thus causing yield and economic losses. Preharvest bagging is one of the practice that is used to overcome these problems for the production of quality fruits. The present investigation was carried out at Punjab Agricultural University, Regional Research Station, Gurdaspur(Punjab) during the years 2023-24 and 2024-25. Twenty year-old fruit bearing litchi plants were selected for different fruit bagging treatments in the current study entitled “Impact of preharvest panicle bagging on fruit setting and quality of litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) cultivar Dehradun”. Litchi fruit panicles were covered with different colours i.e. white, pink and blue non-woven polypropylene bags on three different dates i.e. 10, 20 and 30 days after fruit set and a control(un-bagged). The study comprised of 10 treatment combinations i.e. T1-Polypropylene non-woven white bagging at10 days after fruit set, T2-Polypropylene non-woven whitebagging at 20 days after fruit set, T3 -Polypropylene non-woven white bagging at 30 days after fruit set, T4-Polypropylene non-woven pink bagging at 10 days after fruit set, T5 -Polypropylene non-woven pink bagging at 20 days after fruit set, T6-Polypropylene non-woven pink bagging at 30 days after fruit set, T7-Polypropylene non-woven blue bagging at 10 days after fruit set, T8- Polypropylene non-woven blue bagging at 20 days after fruit set, T9-Polypropylene non-woven blue bagging at 30 days after fruit set and T10- No bagging (control). It has been resulted that the highest fruit retention (95.56%), minimum fruit drop (1.0%), with no fruit cracking, pericarp sun-burn and nut borer infestation were recorded in fruits covered in polypropylene non-woven white bagging at 10 days after fruit set. It has been noted that maximum fruit weight (30.52g), fruit length (5.70cm), fruit breadth (5.25cm), yield (976.64g/panicle) and aril weight (26.86 g) were recorded in fruit panicles covered with polypropylene non-woven white bags at 30 days after fruit. Fruit total soluble solids (23.62°Brix), titratable acidity (0.36%), sugars (21.75%), ascorbic acid (45.36 mg/100g), colour (dark red), anthocyanin content (32.16 mg/100g) and sensory evaluation (8.70) were highest in polypropylene non-woven pink bagging at 30 days after fruit set. Highest benefit-cost ratio (4.25) was observed in polypropylene non-woven white bagging at 20 days after fruit set. Hence, the novel technique of fruit bagging significantly maintained the fruit appearance and improved the yield and quality.