Promising Varieties :-
Umran : This vsriety is cultivaed in a large scale in Punjab and Haryana. The fruit is large, oval in shape with a roundish apex and has an attractive golden yellow colour which turns into chocolate brown at fully maturity. The fruit is sweet, with 14-19 per cent TSS and has pleasant flavour and excellent dessert quality. It is a prolific cropping variety, yielding 150-200 kg of fruit per tree. The fruits ripen late from second fortnight of March to mid-April and have a good keeping quality. It is susceptible to powdery mildew.
Sanaur-2 : This is a selection from Sanaur - a small town near Patiala, which is known for ber cultivation. The fruit is large and oblong with a roundish apex. On ripening, fruits attain a light yellow colour and TSS of 18-19 per cent. Like Umran, it is also a prolofic bearer-yielding about 150 kg fruit per tree. It is a mid-season variety, ripening during second fortnight of March under Panjab conditions and has been found fairly resistant to powdery mildew disease.
Kaithli : This variety is a selection from Kaithal in Haryana. The fruit is medium in size, oval in shape and has a tapering apex. Fruit pulp is soft and sweet with TSS of 14-16 per cent. Fruits ripen in the second fortnight of March to first week of April. The average yield is 120 kg fruit per tree. This is an excellent variety but appears to be more susceptible to powdery mildew disease.
Z.G.-2 : The fruit is medium in size and roundish in shape with smooth skin. The fruit pulp is soft with an excellent sugar-acid blend. When ripe the fruits attain light yellow colour and TSS of 15-16 per cent. The average yield amounts to 150 kg fruit per tree and the ripening time extends from second fortnight of March to first week of April. This variety is recommended for growing for local markets only. It is less susceptible to powdery mildew.
Sanaur-5, Gola, Sanaur-4, Chhuhara and Laddu are other important varieties of ber, which have good taste and bears heavily.
Planting and After Care :-
Planting : The ber plants can be planted in February-March and again in Augast-September, but the latter season of planting gives a better success. Recently, Punjab Agricultural University has also recommended the bare-rooted (without earth ball) planting of ber during December-January.
One metre deep pits of one metre diameter should be dug and left exposed for one month before actual planting. Pits should be refilled with a mixture of top-soil, about 20 kg well-rotten farmyard manure and 1 kg superphosphate per pit. To avoid attack of white ants 30 g of BHC 10 per cent dust is added to each pit. The refilled pits should be about 2-3 cm higher than the ground level and irrigated thoroughly, so that the loose soil settles down firmly. A plant may be set in the centre of a pit with the help of planting board, maintaining the same level of soil at which it stood in the nursery. The budding point should remain about 15-20 cm high from the ground level. The plants should be immediately watered after plantation. They should be irrigated after every 4-6 days atleast during the first two months and subsequently after every 7-10 days for another 3-4 months or until the plants get fully established.
The grafted ber is spreading in habit and grows into a big tree. The tree requries proper spacing for its healthy growth and fruiting. For obtaining good income, ber palnts should be planted 7.5 metres apart in square system (from row to row and plant to plant) thus accommodating 180 trees per ha.
Lifting plants from the nursery : The budded ber plants should be transplanted during February-March or Augast-September. The plants are dug out from the nursery with good-sized earth-balls so that their root-system is not much distributed. The plants should be packed carefully to keep the earth-ball intact. The earth-ball should be kept moist throughout the period of transportation and upto plantationso that the roots of tree do not dry up in the intervening period.
While lifting bare-rooted plants, the leaves and shoots of the budded ber plants are removed before uprooting them from the nursery. These plants are also headed back at a height of 60-75 cm from ground level. Then, these plants are dug from the soil with the help of of Spade and Khurpa to keep maximum feeding roots with them. These plants are tied loosly in bundles and are wrapped in moist rice straw. Such plants can easily be trained according to modified central leader system. The bare-rooted plant should be lifted from nursery from mid-December to early-February.
Planting as Windbreak : Besides regular ber plantations, the tree can also be successfully planted as a windbreak around the commercial orchards to provide an effective wind screen. The tall-growing tres like Safeda, Arjun and Simbal shouls be interplanted with ber, being a low-headed tree.
Rootstock and Propagation :-
Seeds of Katha ber (Zizyphus mauritiana Lamk) are generally used for raising rootstock, which are easily available from the wild growing trees and possess the qualitiesof a good rootstock. The ber plants should be budded on Zizyphus mauritiana (Elongated Dehradun) for higher fruit yield. Ber plants raised on semi-vigorous rootstock Zizyphus mauritiana (Coimbatore) can profitably be planted at a closer spacing of 6 x 6 m. Umran trees grafted on this rootstock show a spread of 6 metre as compared to the recommended rootstock viz. Zizyphus mauritiana (Elongated Dehradun) on whom the tree spread to an area of 7.5 metre. Thus about 50% more plants/ha can be accommodated with over 20% increase in yield of equally good quality fruit.
Seeds of Mallah ber (Zizyphus numularia) can also be used as rootstock. The seedlings of Mallah ber are slow growing and become buddable after longer period than the seedlings of Katha ber.
Raising of Rootstock : The germination of ber seed is quite a difficult process on account of the stony nature of the shell (endocarp) which contains the seed. A large percentage of seed stones are non-viable and require elimination at the time of sowing. Seed stones collected from dropped fruits contain 50-70 percent non-viable seeds. Seeds should be dipped into a salt solution of 17-18 percent concentration for 24 hours before sowing. The flaoting seeds should not be sown as these are generally non-viable. The ber seeds can also be sown by cracking the hard shell (endocarp). They germinate rapidlly in about 8-10 days. However, for commercial purpose, stones should be sown as such to avoid injury to embryos. To get best root-stock material, it is important that seeds should be collected only from healthy and vigorous-growing wild ber trees.
The ber seedlings raised from Katha ber stones, which are sown during March-April, after fresh extraction, in well-prepared nursery field at a distance of 15 cm in rows 30 cm apart. Germination starts in about 3-4 weeks and seedlings make a rapid growth. The seedlings should be trained to the single stem. Nearly one-fourth of the seedlings attain buddable size of a lead pencil by Augast, while the rest are ready for budding by April next.
Budding : The propagation of ber by budding is the most successful method. Both Shield or T-budding and ring-budding methods are employed but the former is preferable, because it is easier to perform. Budding operation should be done when there is proper flow of sap in the stock to be budded. Shield-budding is done during March-April or August-September, but it has been found that August-September budding gives a far better success. The buddlings make growth at a very fast speed. Plants budded in April usually become saleable in August-September, where as those budded in rainy season are ready for planting by February-March next. The ring-budding is preferable during June-July when the new growth starts. Shield-budding done during August-September has given success of 75-81 per cent, whereas budding in April has given a little success. The highest budding success is also achieved in June.
Selection of Stock and Scion : The stock seedlings should be healthy and vigorous and it is allowed to grow as a single stem only. The budding is done when the stock stem has attained the thickness of a lead pencil.
It is essential that bud sticks are taken only from selected trees which are known for bearing a heavy fruit crop of good quality. The mother plant from which the scion bud-sticks are obtained for budding should be healthy, vigorous, free from diseases and insect-pests and should be true-to-type. Two to three months old shoots with plump buds should be selected. Bud-sticks, about 30 cm long, are cut from the selected mother plants. For sending to distant places, about 20 cm long bud-sticks should be taken. The leaves of the bud-sticks should be cut away, keeping the leaf stalks attached to the buds. These should be tied in small bundles and wrapped in moist piece of cloth. The bud-sticks should be kept moist till they are used for budding. The bud sticks can be kept for 2-3 days in good condition.
