Angad Garde

In plant breeding, mutation induction has become an effective way for extending plant genetic germplasm and improvement of cultivars. It is also a powerful tool for the induction of morphological changes and increase variability in quantitative traits and aids in selection of desirable mutants which can be utilized in banana improvement. In general, mutagenesis has several advantages than genetic transformation in crop improvement of Musa sp. Genetic recombination in banana is extremely difficult due to sterility, meiotic irregularities, interspecific hybridity, heterozygosity, and polyploidy that is common in most of the clones. In the last decade, many in vitro techniques of plant tissue culture and cell culture have been developed and refined as an aid to conventional plant breeding. In this book all doubts and hopes of in vitro techniques and their results are discussed. Readers, Research workers and students will definitely get help with this work.

According to high density planting, canopy management light effect and direction the efforts have been made in different parts of the world to find out the optimum spacing for different fruit plants along with the recorded technologies so as to derive the maximum return per unit area. This study aimed at finding out the effect of environmental factors under different density of planting on post harvested yields and quality production to achieve domestic and export markets. Focusing the research on the optimum utilization of land, light and canopy with maximum yield and quality, the experiment had been carried out at Regional Horticultural Research Station, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari with the objectives: to find out the effect of planting density on growth, production and physical qualities of fruit in relation to sunlight direction; to find out post harvest life and qualities of fruits viz. T. S. S., stone pulp ratio, acidity, ascorbic acid, and sugar content; and to test the organoleptic score for general acceptance by the group of people.