Unfruitfulness in Tropical and Sub-tropical fruit crops: Causes and Remedies

What is unfruitfulness?
Fruitfulness’ refers to the state where a plant is not only capable of flowering and bearing
fruit, but also takes these fruits to maturity. The inability to do so is known as ‘unfruitfulness’
or ‘barrenness’. Unfruitfulness is one of the leading problems in many fruit crops which
results in huge loss to growers thus make fruit cultivation less profitable. Although tree
produce adequate flowering, low initial fruit set and subsequently higher fruit-let abscission
leads to unfruitfulness.
The causes of unfruitfulness in fruit plants have been broadly classified into two
categories
1. Internal factors
2. External factors.
Causes of unfruitfulness
 External Factors comprises of Environmental factor viz. Temperature, Rainfall, Wind,
Frost, Hailstorm, Cloudy weather, Light intensity.
 And there are many other factors which affect the unfruitfulness such as Disturbed
water relations, Nutrient supply, Rootstocks, Seasonal influence, Spraying fruit
plants during flowering, Insect-pest and diseases, Miscellaneous factors.
Internal Factors :-
Impotence, Incompatibility, Abortion

Classification and explanation of unfruitfulness

1. External factors :-Environmental factors
Temperature:- It affects the flowering, pollination, fruit set, growth and development of the
plants. Every species requires certain optimum range of temperature for growth,
flowering and fruit set. Extreme temperature fluctuations and continuous high temperature
etc., are injurious to fertilization process.
Example:- The pollen of most of the fruit crops grown in temperate climate, like apple,

pear, cherry, plum, walnut, pecan nut etc., germinate freely at a temperature of 500F or
above, but the fertilization process is practically inhibited if the temperature falls below

400F. Of the different climatic factors, temperature appears to have some relation with the
variability in the incidence of mango malformation. Higher temperature and dry atmosphere
appear to be associated with the increased production of pollen per anther in mango crop. It
have indirect influence on fruit set through its effect on the activity of pollen carrying insects.
Influence of temperature on fruit set has also been reported in papaya such as sex reversing male
plants.
Wind:- It is an important pollination agency in many fruit plants like walnut, pecan nut, oak,
hickory, hazelnut, coconut etc. (Anemophilous or Wind pollinated) In insect pollinated fruit
plants, wind hinders rather than help in pollination, because pollen carrying insects work more
effectively in a still atmosphere. It may also cause the stigmatic fluid to dry prematurely thus
affecting the pollen germination.

Frost:-These factors responsible for causing even a regular bear cultivar or a plant in an
orchard to become an irregular bearer. Spring frosts are harmful to the plants in temperate
climate. It may either kill the sexual organs of a flower or completely destroys the blossoms,
thereby influencing the fruit set and ultimately the fruitfulness (mango, banana, guava,
litchi, etc.)

Cloudy weather:- It also make unfruitfulness in many fruits plants by making

conditions favourable for development and spread of diseases. For example, powdery mildew,
a most serious disease of many fruit crops, usually appears immediately following cloudy
weather which consequently dry up and drop. It is most destructive during March-April,
especially during cloudy weather.
Light intensity:- Light supply is also important in determining fruit-set in almost all
the deciduous fruit plants Effect of Light has been reported in strawberry, as the development
of pistils and stamens take place only when plants are exposed to certain light
intensity. Poor fruit set, yield and color development in high density mango orchards have
been mainly attributed to dense and overlapping tree canopy, rendering poor light penetration,
for which pruning is recommended.
Disturbed water relations:- For fruitful production, adequate supply of water is
required, and disturbance in water or moisture in soil may lead the formation of an abscission
layer, resulting in the dropping of the blossoms, leaves or fruits, thereby affecting fruitfulness
of the plant. Moisture deficit may be responsible for disturbance in C:N ratio and composition
of other chemicals, which are responsible for fruit drop. It is not true that moisture deficit is
always responsible for drop of flowers and fruits but excess moisture causes flower and fruit
drop in apples and olives. In general, avoid irrigating orchards during flowering as it
may sometime lead to complete shedding of flowers as reported in citrus.
Nutrient supply:- Balanced supply of nutrients is always desirable for realizing optimum fruit
production. However, it is often impossible to distinguish clearly between the influence of
nutritive conditions within the plant and the conditions without nutrient supply on fruit set,
fruitfulness and fertility. Excess supply of manures and fertilizers, though, may result in
vigorous growth of the plants, but it affects flowering and fruiting adversely. It is assumed that
overfed plants have low C:N ratio, which is not desirable for proper set in fruit plants.
Example: Jonathan apple Self sterile on rich land in Victoria (Australia),
becomes self-fruitful when grown on land of low productivity. The Hope grape
(perfect flower variety) and Muscadine group, produce hermaphrodite flowers only
when proper nutrient supply is given. Under inadequate management practices, most of the
flowers produced by these varieties are staminate. Some cultivars of strawberry produce
perfect flowers and are productive when grown under ordinary management
cultural practices, but produce only little pollen for satisfactory crop when grown on rich
soils.
Rootstocks:- Rootstocks are known as the backbone of fruit industry, thus many rootstocks are
used for inducing various desirable benefits on the scion cultivar. In some instances, stocks exerts
considerable influence on flowering and fruit set of the scion cultivar.
Example: Troyer Citrange (Citrus), Dogridge (Grapes), Pusa Srijan (Guava),
Khirni (Sapota), etc. Seedlings plants are relatively slow to come into bearing, but it can be
hastened by grafting on trees of some kind that are bearing. Thus, rootstocks, directly or
indirectly influence the fruitfulness of the plant.
Age and vigour of the plant:- The effects of age and vigour on bearing behavior of fruit plants
are well known. The age of the plant has been the factor, apparently associated with the degree or
percentage of fruit setting.
Example: Young and vigorous plum trees are known to produce higher proportion of defective
pistils than older trees of the same variety. Young vigorous apple trees often fail to set fruits
under controlled cross- pollination, whereas old and less vigorous trees of the same
variety set freely. The problem of coulure is very serious disease in the initial years
of bearing in Muscat of Alexandria grape, but later it is less serious.
Insect-pest and diseases:- At times insect are considered useful to the flowers as they are
the chief pollination agents and thereby they help in adequate fruit set .Yet, the flowers of
many fruits are attacked by numerous insect-pests, fungal, viral and bacterial diseases,
rendering them unfruitful too.
Example: Houseflies strictly do pollination in mango, but mango hopper may infest it
blossoms in such a number as to blast off all the flowers on a tree or even in the whole
orchard. Among diseases blight is most serious diseases, which limits fruit setting in pears
considerably. Others like Scab (Apple and Pear), Powdery Mildew (Mango, Grape, Ber, etc.)

Internal factors:-
It is a common observation that some fruit plants even produce abundant flowers, but
usually fail to set adequate number of fruits and sometimes they do not produce fruits at all.
This failure of fruit set may be due to various reasons, like failure of pollination, sterility or even
nutritional deficiency. Stout and his co-workers in 1916 recognized that such type of
unfruitfulness is mainly due to the following three internal factors:-
 Sterility from impotence
 Sterility from incompatibility
 Sterility from embryo abortion
Sterility from impotence:- Sterility from impotence arises when one or both the sex organs
fail to develop the fruit properly. The impotence may be complete, in which either no flower or
no sex organs are formed, or it may be partial, in which either stamens or pistils are
abortive.
Sterility from incompatibility : - Sterility from incompatibility arises, when, although
the sex organs are completely formed, they fail to function properly. The pollen grains are
unable to germinate freely on stigma or stigma is not compatible with the pollen. Thus in
incompatibility, the properly developed gametes fail to unite together, although the
sex organs are completely formed or functional.
Abortion:- In sterility due to abortion, even after the proper pollination and
fertilization, the abortion of the embryo takes place before reaching the maturity. However,
sterility associated with the internal factors are based upon the following fundamental processes:
a) Due to evolutionary tendencies:- Due to evolutionary tendencies, cross fertilization must be
done in order to maintain the vigor of the species. In these species, self fertilization is difficult.
b) Due to genetic influences:- Unfruitfulness due to incompatibility: Incompatibility
between pollen and ovule.
Self incompatibility: Inability of a plant with functional pollen to set fruits or seeds when self
pollinated. In mango, self-incompatibilty is reported in cvs. Dashehari, Chausa and Langra.
Unfruitfulness due to hybridity: Generally, the wider the cross, greater is the degree of
sterility encountered. For example, hybrid between ‘Troth Early’ peach and ‘Wild Goose’
plum, which has been named as ‘Mule’ bears flowers abundantly, but the flowers neither
have petals nor pistils. A number of hybrids between Vitis rotundifolia and Euvitis group are
almost sterile due to hybrid condition.
Inter-fruitfulness and inter-fertility: The ability of two plants or two varieties to set fruits
and develop seeds with each other’s pollen is called as inter-fruitfulness or inter-fertility.
Example: Smyrna fig, Datepalm, some varieties of Grapes.
Reciprocal crossings:- In certain fruit species, it has been observed that, if a certain
crossing proved sterile, its reciprocal crosses were also sterile and if one variety proved to
be incompatible with the other, those two were likewise incompatible with each other.
However, in other, a certain set of crossing has been fruitful, but the reciprocal crossing being
sterile.
Example:- Tragedy plum (European type) good pollinizer for several varieties of Japanese type,
but fail to set fruits when Japanese varieties is used for the Tragedy plum. Vitis Vinifera, V.
labrusca and V. cordifolia species of grape set fruits freely either with V. rotundifolia and
V. munsoniana, but when V. rotundifolia and V. munsoniana are used as pollen parents either for
V. Vinifera, V.labrusca and V. cordifolia, they never set fruits freely.
c) Due to physiological factors:-
 Slow growth of the pollen tube (Clementine mandarin)
 Poor pollen germination
 Premature or delayed pollination (Kagzi Kalan)
Nutritive condition of plant:- Poor nutritive condition of the plant not only affects
vegetative growth, but also results in the production of defective pistils and poor
pollen production. One of the factors associated with alternate bearing in many fruit plants
has been the exhaustion of food reserves by heavy crop load in ‘on’ year, leaving very little
or no food reserves for flowering and fruiting in the

Remedial measures:-
 Use of suitable rootstocks
 Control of frost damage
 Proper nutrition:- Nitrogen application after terminal bud formation led to the
development of flower with enhanced embryo sac longevity.
 Control of pollination
 Proper used of pollinzers
 Application of plant growth regulators
Eg. Litchi application of TIBA (2,3,5 Triiodobenzoc acid ) and
KNO3 Increase pollen fertility