Morphological and Bio-chemical Characterization of Litchi Cultivars

The investigation was conducted at Horticulture Research Centre, Patharchatta, Post-Harvest Laboratory of the Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture and PG. Laboratory of the Department of Environmental Science, College of Basic Science and Humanities, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand during June, 2011 to June, 2012. Experiment was conducted in ‘Randomized Block Design’ on 21 years old litchi trees of cultivars Rose Scented, Calcuttia, Late Seedless, Early Seedless, Longia, Kasba, Mandraji, McLean, Dehradun and Shahi with three replications. The results showed a significant variation in tree spread, cross trunk sectional area, leaf length, breadth, fresh and dry weight of leaves, colour of newly emerging leaves, number of leaves per shoot, leaf area, length of inflorescence, number of primary and secondary branches of inflorescence, total number of flowers, sex ratio, fruit drop and retention, fruit yield, fresh and dry weight of aril, peel and seed, mean fruit weight, pulp content, peel and seed content, fruit colour, shape, length, breadth, seed colour, seed shape, total soluble solids, total titratable acidity, T.S.S. : acidity ratio, ascorbic acid, specific gravity among the litchi cultivars. However, tree height, stem girth, tree volume and seed breadth did not differ significantly. The maximum zinc content of 0.77 mg/100g was recorded in Longia. Likewise the copper content not found in most of the litchi cultivars except in Mandraji to the tune of 0.03 mg/100g. The maximum iron content of 4.45 mg/100g was recorded in cultivar Late Seedless and the maximum magnesium content of 0.55 mg/100g was noted in cultivar Late Seedless.