Optimizing nitrogen application for improving yield and fruit quality in different peach cultivars

Pyrus communis fruit commonly known as pear, is an edible cultivated fruit, grows in Hindukush Range Mountains of Pakistan. This nutrient rich fruit is consumed as a food, medicine and also used as an income source. A number of practices (e.g. fertilizers, pesticides, understory crop rotation etc.) are used for getting better yield to overcome the growing demands of this fruit. Current study investigated fruit quality and quantity of two peach varieties (i.e. Early Grande and Elberta-6) in response to varied levels of nitrogen application (i.e. control, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 kg N/tree). Results showed that nitrogen application significantly improved the total yield and flowering intensity of the peach fruit and the highest yield was obtained at 1.5 kg N/Tree. Interestingly, qualitative parameters including reducing and non-reducing sugars initially increased with lower value of nitrogen (i.e. 0.5 kg tree^− 1) and then suddenly decreased with increase in nitrogen fertilizer. This suggests that different peach cultivars have different nitrogen requirements, and optimal nitrogen level may vary depending on the type of peach variety. For further elaboration we employed principal component analysis (PCA) to identify the relationship between nitrogen levels applied and fruit quantity and quality parameters. The analysis revealed that these parameters were largely under the influence of nitrogen fertilizer with PC1 explaining the majority of the variance in both datasets. These findings suggest that optimizing nitrogen application is critical for maximizing yield and fruit quality in peach orchards, and that the optimal nitrogen level may vary depending on the peach cultivar. Further research is needed to investigate the underlying factors that contribute to tree growth and fruit quality in peach trees.