GRAFTING DATES AND WRAPPING MATERIAL EFFECT ON GJCA-1 CUSTARD APPLE

Custard apple is a favorite table fruit of common man in Indian subcontinent belongs to family Annonaceae and native to Tropical America. The fruit is popular for its sweet and slightly tangy, creamy textured flesh. It is known by several vernacular names such as sugar apple, sweet sop, sitaphal and sharifa in different parts of the country. It is a small deciduous or semi- evergreen tree. Its commercial cultivation is gaining momentum in Gujarat. Gujarat occupies 5,340 hectare of area with 55,040 MT production with a productivity of 10.21 MT/ ha (Anon, 2016). The variety of custard apple named Gujarat Junagadh Custard apple-1 (GJCA-1) was developed by Department of Horticulture, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh during year 2009 and recommended for cultivation. Degradable tapes are easy to wrap and are effective to establish contact between stock and scion stick and it automatically degrades after a period of time and thus there is no need of removing it manually, which also saves the labour cost.