Aim: To find suitable fertilizer and concentration for foliar application in cashew to improve fruit retention, nut yield and leaf nutrient content in South Chhattisgarh region. Methodology: An on-farm trial were conducted consecutively for three years from 2017-18 to 2019-20 to study the response of cashew trees to foliar application of major nutrients with respect to growth and yield attributes. The fertilizers selected for foliar application were NPK (19-19-19), Urea, NPK (13-0-45) and NPK (12-32-16) at 1 and 2 % along with non-sprayed trees as control. All the treatments were imposed in three replications under RBD design. The age of selected trees was 15 years. Results: Foliar spray of 2% Urea before the vegetative flush, after the vegetative flush and nut set stage gave significantly higher mean number of flowering panicles m-2, number of nuts at pea nut and marble stage, high fruit retention, more number of nuts per panicle, nut yield per tree, weight of 100 nuts and maximum leaf nutrient content at flowering and harvesting stages. Interpretation: Foliar application of fertilizers with primary nutrients lead to significant improvement in flowering, fruit set and leaf nutrient content, which may influence nut yield in cashew.

An experiment was conducted to find out the promising genotype for commercial cultivation in the region. All the genotypes differed in their growth and yield characters. Among the genotypes evaluated, H-68 had the maximum growth characters like tree height, stem girth and canopy spread whereas total laterals/m2, flowering laterals/m2, fruit set/m2, number of nuts per panicle, nut yield/ tree and shelling percentage were maximum in H-303. M- 15/4 showed longest flowering duration. Genotypes H-255 and H-367 had the highest nut weight and apple weight, respectively. Apple TSS was recorded maximum in T. No. 30/1 whereas apple acidity was recorded maximum in M- 15/4. Results showed that the cashew hybrids H-303 and H-68 are promising in the agro-climatic region of Bastar plateau of Chhattisgarh. Bangladesh J. Bot. 51(1): 179-184, 2022 (March)

An investigation was carried out to find out the suitable month of grafting in cashew under different environmental conditions. The research was conducted under Factorial randomised block design with 15 treatment combinations of month of grafting and environmental conditions which were replicated thrice. The results revealed that, highest chlorophyll A, chlorophyll B and total chlorophyll were recorded in grafting was done in month of September under shade net condition while highest absolute growth rate (AGR), relative growth rate (RGR) and leaf area ratio (LAR) was observed when grafting was done in July under mist chamber.