Preface India is the second largest country in the world in area and production of fruits. The annual production of fruits is 91.4 million tonnes from an area of 6.4 million hectares. Climatically India is favorable for the production of a variety of tropical, sub-tropical and temperate fruits. Most of the fruits are grown on wide range of agro- climatic conditions with varied production.   A large variety of fruits are grown in our country. Mango, citrus, banana, guava and apple are the main fruits. Large number of other fruits are grown in good acreage. The fruits are grown throughout the country from temperate zone to coastal tropical region. The major fruit growing states in the country are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. In previous book “Fruit Science Culture and Technology Vol 1” basic information on various horticultural aspects like area and production, fruit plant fundamentals culture and technology, fruit plant propagation technology and post-harvest fruit technology were discussed in detail. In present book “Fruit Science Culture and Technology Vol 2” different tropical fruits grown in the country are discussed in three sections denoted to (i) Culture and Technology of Major Tropical Fruits (ii) Culture and Technology of Common Tropical Fruits and (iii) Culture and Technology of Minor Tropical Fruits. The various aspects of fruit cultivation mainly covered are nutritive and cultural significance; origin, history, and distribution ; taxonomical and botanical description ; climatic and soil adaptability; propagation technology and rootstocks ; plant and fruit physiology ; recommended and popular cultivars; planning and planting; soil cultural practices technology  - water need, nutritional need, weed control, inter culture; plant cultural practices technology -  training and pruning, fruit thinning, fruit quality improvement, use of plant growth regulators ; special problems; harvesting and production of fruits; post-harvest fruit technology ; insect-pests and diseases management ; marketing and export potential. Section-1 covers 5 leading tropical fruits of the country. Similarly, section- 2 and section- 3 each covers 2 tropical fruits in order of their importance.

INTRODUCTION Mango (Mangifera indica L.) belonging to Family Anacardiaceae is the most important commercially grown evergreen tree of tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Due to its wide range of adaptability, high nutritive value, colorful fruits, richness in variety, delicious juicy taste and excellent flavor, it possesses high commercial value. It is sometimes also called ‘apple of the tropics’. It is believed that cultivation of mango originally started in South East Asia where it is being cultivated for last four to six thousand years. Now, it is cultivated in 112 countries of the world. India has the richest collection of mango cultivars.

INTRODUCTION Banana (Musa species) also known as ‘Apple of Paradise’ is an important and commercial fruit crop of tropical regions of the world. It is the only tropical fruit traded to the extent, that it is the 5th largest agricultural commodity after cereals, sugar, coffee and cocoa in world market. The word ‘banana’ is now applied to all table varieties. Formerly, it was applied to ‘Nendran’ banana of Kerala which was however called ‘Plantain’ by Westerners. The English used the word ‘Plantain’ to represent cooking banana while in parts of South India, even sweet fruited clones were called ‘Plantains’. The variant with persistent bracts and male flowers with large fruits held in lax manner and eaten after cooking were grouped under plantains. All other types which had small fruits, held compact in a bunch with softening of the pulp when ripe, dropping of withered bracts and staminate flowers as the banana. In other words plantain are starchy, not sweet and cooked as vegetable. They usually resembles green bananas, are longer and have thick skin. Bananas are sweet, shorter and have thinner skin. They are eaten as a fruit and have yellow colour when ripe.

INTRODUCTION Guava (Psidium guajava L.) is an important fruit crop of India. It is a tropical fruit but also grows well under sub-tropical conditions. Guava is one of the commonest fruits liked by all the people and is known as ‘Apple of Tropics’. It is one of the major fruit of India and considered the fifth most important fruit in area and production after mango, citrus, banana and apple. Guava is quite hardly, prolific bearer and highly remunerative fruit which needs relatively less care as compared to other fruits. It excels most of other fruit crops in productivity and food value and as such has wide adaptability to soil and climatic conditions. Guava is such a fruit which is practically grown all over the country on commercial scale and especially in kitchen gardens and near the tubewell premises. The best quality of guava in India is grown in the area around Allahabad. Guava bear heavy crop every year and offer handsome economic return to growers.

INTRODUCTION Papaya (Carica papaya L.) is known as wonder fruit of the tropics. It is unique plant, which produces fruits throughout the year. It owes its popularity due to various reasons, i.e., requires less area per tree, comes to bearing in a year, easy to cultivate and has high nutritive and medicinal value. Papaya is an ideal fruit for growing in kitchen gardens, backyard of homes as well as in orchards, especially those near the cities or big towns. India ranks first in production of Papaya in the world with share of 31% of the total production. Its productivity is highest (43.70 t/ha) among the fruits grown in. It is also  India. It is famous intercrop due to its small stature, short life cycle, precocious in bearing and grown extensively as a filler crop in orchards.   Papaya is quick growing, bearing fruits within 8-10 months of transplanting and giving yield in same year. Fast growth with high photosynthetic rate, reproductive precocity, low production cost and more output characterize the uniqueness of this fruit. Now a day, the area under this crop is growing rapidly due to its higher productivity. Indeed, papaya cultivation is very profitable if done on modern lines. Demand for its fruits is growing in domestic as well as export markets and require modern technological interventions for commercial exploitation of these fruits. A ready market for its fruits becomes a big bonus for growers. Immediate availability of a selling point and a good price from a buyer encourage the farmers to grow more papaya crop.

INTRODUCTION Pineapple [(Ananas comosus (L.) Merr., Bromeliaceae)] is a commercial, tropical American crop, popularly known as “Golden Queen” all over the globe. The name ‘pineapple’ was given in the mid-17th century because of its resemblance to ‘pine cone’. Its botanical name Ananas comes from ‘anana’, the Tupi word for the fruit, meaning “excellent fruit” and comosus means tufted and refers to the stem of the fruit.   Pineapple is a monocotyledonous, low-growing,herbaceous and perennial with a spiral of spiny sword-shaped leaves on a thick stem. It has 90 to 100 cm height with spreading leaves, which give the plant a rosette appearance.The plant bears a single fruit terminally on a peduncle protruding out from the centre of the rosette. The fruit is mostly a large juicy fruit containing aromatic, edible, yellow flesh surrounded by a tough segmented skin and topped with a tuft of stiff leaves.

INTRODUCTION Sapota [Manilkara zapota (L) P. Royen] commonly known as chiku in India, is an exotic fruit crop originated in Tropical America. The name sapodilla is derived from the Spanish word zapotilla, meaning “small sapote.” Tree have dark green beautiful radiating canopy with central flag having aesthetic values.It is a popular crop widely cultivated in most tropical countries. The cultivation of sapota is a profitable venture as it does not need much spraying, pruning and it is a long-life fruit tree. Moreover, the fruit fetches good price in market as it ripens in April and May in North India, when mango and litchi fruits are scarce. At international level in India crop attained an important place in fruit industry. In India this fruit species is cultivated only for its delicious fruit for table purpose but in South America, it is cultivated for chickle the “gutta parcha” which is used as base material for chewing gum.This is extracted from bark. Sapota fruit present a climacteric behavior. In India farmer from Bordi village near Gholwad, late Sri Gopal Rao Patil realized the commercial potential of this evergreen and ever fruiting tree and procured a few plants and began to propagate for distribution among poor farmers of this area and within short time it had spread from Palghar in Maharashtra to Amalsad in Gujarat. Subsequently commercial cultivation in his region was helped by lranis and Marwari settlers. The best sapota orchards in this area belong to lranis and Marwaris. It is from this area that this fruit went to various other parts of the country like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana etc. In India crop become very popular among farmers as a cash crop. There is a possibility of extending cultivation of this crop into warm and humid climate of all tropical regions of the world. In India area under this crop increasing every year. Therefore, in recent years, it has attained the status of major fruit in peninsular India. Popularity of this fruit is on increase due to high production per unit area and continuous fruiting throught out the year.

INTRODUCTION Cashew nut (Anacardium occidentale L.), in the current global scenario, has attained the status of economically important crop with considerable export potential. Ancient sea route traders have been responsible for the spread of cashew from Brazil, its native, to other parts of tropical and sub tropical regions. In the rainforest areas with hot and humid regions of North east Brazil that the people from the long past knew to roast and use the cashew kernels. The owning of cashew trees meant the wealth, prosperity and social status of the family even in those days around 1500 AD in Tropical American region. The commercial importance of cashew nuts was not aggressively known at the time of its initial introduction into Asian and African countries.

INTRODUCTION Custard apple (Annona squamosa L.) is considered as one of the delicious fruit meant for table purpose. In India, during the year 2014-15 the area under cultivation of custard apple was 29870 ha with production of 228370 tones and productivity of 7.65 tones ha-1 (Anon, 2015a). In Maharashtra, the area increased by 9 to 10 times recently i.e. since 1990 onward, after start of Economic Guarantee Scheme (EGS) of Government of Maharashtra. Hence, Maharashtra is the leading state in custard apple production, wherein during the year 2014-15, the area, production and productivity of custard apple was 8660 ha, 59330 tones and 6.85 tones, respectively. This accounts about 25.98 per cent share of the state in the national production. This is followed by Gujarat, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. (Anon, 2015a). The largest area of nearly one third of the Maharashtra State is in Purandar tahsil of Pune district. An average production of custard apple in Purandar area is about six tons ha–1. The farmers fetch high economic returns at very low input cost. Besides, export quality fruits get very high price ranging from Rs. 70 to 800 kg-1 (Anon, 1998) in foreign countries.

INTRODUCTION Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam) belongs to family Moraceae. It is popularly known as ‘Poor Man’s food’ in eastern and southern India. It is also known as Kanthal, Kathal, Penasa, Kontaka and Phanas in India. Jackfruit is a very unique fruit crop and common tree of low land tropics and grows well without much care. It has considerable potential but it is yet to receive due attention. It is mainly grown in homestead for domestic uses and as a shade tree in coffee or cardamom plantations. It is cultivated in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and Nepal. India is the second largest producer of jackfruit in the world and is considered as ‘Mother land of jackfruit’. In India, it is widely distributed in Assam, Tripura, Bihar Uttar Pradesh, and foot hills of Himalaya, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Maharashtra (Sidhu, 2012). It is seldom grown in an organized form as that of other fruit crops viz. mango, guava, etc. Most of the jackfruit trees are observed in kitchen garden or orchards of other fruit crops, roadside or in forests. Well managed orchards of jackfruit are seen in Panruti area of Pondicherry, where the production is at almost throughout the year. At present the area under jackfruit in the country is 157.58 (000’ ha) and the production is 1572.87 (000’ MT) (Anon. 2015).