Choice of Varieties :-
1. Ganesh : It is an improved variety known as GBG No. 1. Ganesh is a seedling selection by Dr. G.S. Cheema at Pune. It is a selection from Alandi and considered to be the best variety. The fruit is medium in size. It has soft seeds. Ganesh is a high yielding variety and is a good cropper. The flesh is pinkish and has juice with agreeable taste.
2. Alandi : Fruit medium in size, fleshy tasta, blood red or deep pink with sweet slightly acidic juice. Seeds very hard. The variety is named after the name of village where it was grown extensively.
3.Dholka : Fruit large size, rind grenish white, fleshy testa, pinkish white or whitish with sweet juice. Seeds soft. Juice is acidic. It is medium cropper. It is an important variety of Gujrat.
4. Kandhari : It produces large fruits. The rind is deep red. The flesh is dark red or deep pink. The juice is slightly acidic. The seeds are hard. The variety is successfully grown in Himachal Pradesh.
5. Muskat : >This variety is also largely grown. Fruits small to medium in size. Rind in somewhat thick. Fleshy testa, with moderately sweet juice. The seeds are rosy in colour. Fruits are tasty.
6. Nabha : Tree is medium in growth, fruit skin yellowish and smooth. Cracking medium. Juice is 65 per cent. The arils are light pink in colour. Seeds are medium in soft. Taste is good.

Propagation :
Pomegranate plants raised from seed vary widely and are undesirable. Thus, they must be raised vegetatively. Among the vegetative methods of propagation, cuttings are universally used for raising pomegranate plants on commercial basis.
Mature wood is used for making the cuttings and these are 8 to 10 cm long. The cuttings are planted in the nursery fields in such a way that not more than one-third of the cutting is exposed. The best time of making the cuttings is December-January when the plants shed leaves. The cuttings made during September-October can also root satisfactorily. The cuttings in the nursery field are planted directly after making them from the plants. They need not to be kept for callusing.
Pomegranate may also be propagated by air-layering or gootee. Treatment with 10000 ppm Indole Butyric acid in lanolin as carrier was found to improve rooting. Ground layering is another method used for multiplying the pomegranate plants.

Planting Operation :
Land is prepared thoroughly and levelled prior to pit digging. The layout is done following square or hexagonal system. The size of the pit should be 60 * 60 * 60 cm. Pits should be filled with 22 - 25 kg of farmyard manure or compost, 1kg of superphosphate and good soil mixture.
The plants are planted at a distance of 6m * 6m apart in square system and it will accommodate 275 plants per hectare. In higher but deeper soil, the planting distance can be reduced to 5 * 5 m.
Planting density is the most important yield contributing factor which can be manipulated to attain the maximum production per unit area. The optimum spacing is important for the maximum utilization of land and good income over a long period. At MPAU, Rahuri, it was observed that as the plant density was increased, yield per hectare also increased without affecting fruit quality. A density of 1000 plants per hectare gave 2-3 times higher yield and 2.44 times more profit as compared with normal plant population of 400 per hectare. It was also recommended that for higher yields for the first four to five years after planting, a distance of 5 * 2 m may be adopted and alternate plants may be removed afterwards maintaining a planting distance of 5 * 4 m.
The best time of planting pomegranate in Northen India is dormant period, i.e. January to mid February and in South India during monsoon season.

Flowering and Fruiting :
In evergreen pomegranate cultivers, the flower buds of the spring flush are borne on nature wood of one-year old shoot, whereas the flowers which appears during July-August are borne on the current year's growth. In deciduous cultivers, the flowers are borne on the current year's growth between July and August. The flowers are found mostly in clusters, either terminally or in axils of the leaves. The inflorescence in cyme and due to heavy drops of secondary and tertiary buds they appear to be solitary in clusters.
In Western India, three flowering seasons and in North India, two flowering seasons have been reported. The flowering period of different cultivers is also quite variable. Under Delhi condition, Dholka, Kandhari, Muskat and Patiala flowered only once in a year while Ganesh and Japanese Dwarf flowered twice.

Orchard Cultural Practices :-
Irrigation :
The newly set plants require regular irrigation so that the roots become well established and the plants can start growth. The plants may be individually watered daily or about a week after planting. In northern India where planting is done during the spring, regular watering may be given every 7 to 20 days till the start of the monsoon. In areas where planting is done during the monsoon, irrigation may be given whenever there is no rain for a prolonged period of time. After the plants are well established, in about 6 months, they can stand considerable amount of drought and irrigation may be given at intervals of 2 to 4 weeks depending upon the soil, climate, weather conditions and intercrops grown.
Regular irrigation is essential from flowering to ripening of fruits, as irregular moisture condition results in dropping of flowers and small fruits.

Intercropping :
Intercropping is pomegranate orchard is highly desirable because it takes about 6 - 7 years to come to commercial bearing. Vegetables viz. cabbage, cauliflower, tomato, radish, cucurbits, moong, peas, beans or green manure crops can easily be followed in pomegranate orchard. The growing of intercrops should be carried out for the first four years of the life of the plantation. It is usually advisable to allow the intercrops to grow throughtout the year. Intercrops can be continued for another 3 to 4 years after the plants had started bearing. It is best to grow a green manure crop during the monsoon and burry, when it has completed its vegetative phase and started flowering.

Manuring and Fertilization :
In northern India, manures are applied during February, whereas in other areas, manuring may be done just before the start of monsoon in case of young plants. The one year old tree should be manured with about 10 kg of farmyard manure and 150 to 200 g of ammonium sulphate. The amount is increased by the same amount every year so that a five year old tree gets 50 kg of farmyard manure and one kg of ammonium sulphate. Experiment carried out at the MPAU indicate the following schedule :

Age of plant (years)	Nitrogen  (g/plant)	Phosphorus  (g/plant)	Potassium  (g/plant)
1 1/2 - 2	250	125	125
2 1/2 - 3	500	125	125
3 1/2 - 4	500	125	250
4 and above	625	250	250

At Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri, an application of 500 g N, 125 g P₂O₅ and 125 g K₂O is recommended for 'Ganesh' variety. Under Udaipur conditions of Rajasthan, application of 240 g N, 160 g P₂O₅ and 60 g K₂O per plant is suggested for variety 'Jodhpur Red'. In Gujrat state pomegranate is applied with 50 kg farmyard manure, 500 g N, 250 g P₂O₅ and 500 g K₂O per plant per year. Application of fertilizers is done in December-January for Ambe bahar, in May-June of Mrig bahar and in October-November for Hasth bahar.
In Andhra Pradesh, adult bearing trees are applied with 800 g N, 400 g P₂O₅ and 400 g K₂O per tree alongwith 100 kg FYM per tree. In Karnataka a dose of 200 kg N, 300 kg P₂O₅ and 100 g K₂O alongwith 12.5 tonnes per hectare farmyard manure is applied.
In Orissa, 45 kg N, 115 kg P₂O₅ per hectare along with 10 kg FYM + 100 g sterameal per tree are applied. In Tamil Nadu, 600 g N, 500 g P₂O₅ and 1200 g K₂O alongwith 30 kg FYM is incorporated per tree per year.

Training and Pruning :-
Training : Pomegranate may be trained as multi-stemmed tree or single stemmed tree.
(i) Multi-stemmed tree : In this method 3 - 4 stems are left at hill and remaining shoots are removed. In Maharashtra, the growers prefer multistem training by retaining all stems. But yield has not been found to be affected by number of stems per plant.
(ii) Single-stemmed tree : The single stem is left by removing all the side shoots at the time of planting. The main stem is headed back at a height of about one metre results in the formation of branches. Four or five well distributed branches on all sides above 60 - 70 cm from the ground level are allowed to grow. In the third year of planting one can maintain desired shape of the pomegranate. Single stemmed tree has tendency to produce less number of shoots.

Pruning : Pomegranate does not usually require pruning except for removal of suckers, dead and diseased branches and developing a sound framework of the tree. It is essential to remove the suckers as soon as they arise. The fruits are borne terminally on short spurs produced all along the slow growing mature wood. These bear fruits for 3 to 4 years. Therefore, only a limited pruning of bearing tree is required. Annual pruning in winter during dormant period should be confined to shortening of the previous season's growth to encourage fruiting.
For getting a good crop, a set of new shoots should be allowed to develop every year on all sides of the tree and gradual growth of new shoots should be encouraged by restricted cutting back of the bearing shoots.