PERFORMANCE OF CASHEW CULTIVARS UNDER MAIDAN PARTS OF KARNATAKA

Cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) is an upcoming commercial plantation crop of maidan parts of Karnataka as it is known to exhibit drought tolerance. India is the largest producer, consumer and second largest exporter of cashew in the world. However, the present annual production of about 6.95 lakh tons of raw cashew nuts from an area of 8.60 lakh ha cannot meet the annual demand of processing industries, which is estimated to be around 11-12 lakh tons of raw nuts. The present low productivity of 0.900 t/ha is mainly due to the coverage of large cashew area with non-descript, genetically inferior seedling progenies. Therefore, in order to identify a suitable cashew cultivar for maidan parts, the 14 cultivars/hybrids released from different centres were field planted at the Agricultural Research Station, Chintamani during 1992. Among 14 entries, the highest nut yield of 12.76 kg/tree was recorded by ‘H-320’ followed by ‘NRCC-2’ (10.82 kg/tree). For the cumulative yield over a period of 16 harvests, ‘H-320’ recorded highest cumulative yield of 144.85 kg/tree followed by ‘NRCC-2’ (127.34 kg/tree). On perusal of the data, it was observed that among cultivars/hybrids tried ‘H-320’ recorded higher nut weight (8.8 g), shelling percent (31) and consistent nut yield over years under maidan parts of Karnataka.