Various Plantation Aspects For Sapota crop

Sapota crop is propagated by vegetative methods such as air layering or gootee layering, grafting and budding.

Best season for Sapota tree plantation:

Chikoo tree Planting can be done in any season provided irrigation facilities are available. Grafts are usually planted at the beginning of the rainy season between June to August. In areas where heavy rainfall is present the sapota crop can be planted as late as September.

The spacing of Sapota plants:

The land should be thoroughly plowed at 30-45 cm depth and leveled. Usually Chikoo tree planting is done at a distance of 10mx10m. As the growth of sapota plants is slow it takes a longer period to occupy the allocated space. Therefore, a spacing of 6mx6m between plants is maintained until the canopies meet. Subsequently, alternate sapota trees are removed to reduce the plant's population.

Pit digging for Sapota plantation:

Pits are opened during the summer and exposed to the sun for a period of 2-3 weeks. While opening the pits, the topsoil and subsoil are to be heaped separately at the top layer. Each pit is filled with topsoil first followed by subsoil mixed with well-composted farmyard manure (FYM), 1kg Superphosphate and 500g Sulphate of potash. Lindane powder @100g/pit is added to sapota control termites.