author(s)
Ravindra Kumar, KK Jha, S Sengupta, S Misra, CS Mahto, MK Chakravarty, SC Narayan, DP Saha and M Yadav

abstract
The effect of plant growth regulators (PGRs) on insect- pest incidence and fruit cracking is not widely studied. The PGRs have potential to regulate all aspects of plant growth and development that can improve yield and quality of fruits through reduced incidence of insect-pest and minimized cracking of fruit. In the present study an attempt was made to reduce the insect-pest incidence and fruit cracking in Cape gooseberry using plant growth regulators and emasculation with objective of avoiding the loss and ultimately increase the income to the farmers. The concentrations of plant growth regulators were taken as GA₃ @ 50 ppm, 100 ppm, 200 ppm, 2, 4-D @ 5 ppm, 10 ppm, 15 ppm, NAA @ 50 ppm, 100 ppm, 150 ppm, IAA @ 15 ppm, 30 ppm, 45 ppm and Control (water spray). The plants growth regulators with varying concentrations were sprayed on emasculated as well as un-emasculated flower buds (30 in each case) except control during both the years 2017-18 and 2018-19. On the basis of findings, the application of GA₃ @ 200 ppm effectively minimized the lower percentage of insect- pest incidence (1.67%) whereas; the spray of GA₃ @ 100 ppm on flower buds was showed the minimum fruit cracking percentage (1.67%) over the rest of the treatments in the fruit of Cape gooseberry.