Climate drives of growth, yield and microclimate variability in multistoried coconut plantation in Konkan region of Maharashtra, India

Abstract

Long term experiments (2013-14 to 2018-19) were conducted in Regional Coconut Research Station, Bhatye, a representative location of major coconut growing region of Maharashtra (Konkan region) to study the impact of changing weather parameters on growth and yield of 32 years old coconut plants (dwarf x tall, i.e., COD x WCT). Regression based trend analysis of weather parameters was conducted to check the variability of weather parameters over experimentation years. There was a decrease in maximum temperature (r²=0.034) and increase in minimum temperature (r²=0.017) and rainfall (r²=0.393), indicating change in weather parameters. Correlation studies were carried out to understand the interaction between weather parameters and coconut growth and yield. Maximum temperature had a negative impact on growth (-0.02 and -0.58 for number of leaves and annual leaf production) but had a positive impact on yield (0.41, 0.64 and 0.63 for number of bunches, number of buttons and nut yield). Minimum temperature had significant negative effect on annual leaf production (-0.88) and had a positive effect on nut yield per plant (0.95). The effect of relative humidity (morning and evening) was non-significant. Rainfall had its influence on   the crop by negatively affecting the number of bunches (-0.10) and nut yield per plant (-0.48), a positively affecting number of buttons (0.08). Further, microclimate in the plantation was compared to an open field, which indicated lower maximum and minimum temperature (-3.4 and -3.1 %) and higher morning and evening relative humidity (1.6 and 1.9 %) in the coconut plantation as compared to the open field.