ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Nutrition
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1661974
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Fruit-Growing Systems as a Key Factor of Successful Production: Volume IIView all 3 articles
Optimization of Fertilizer Doses for Increased Fruit Yield of Dragon Fruit adopting Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Box-Behnken Design
Provisionally accepted
Karunakaran Ganesan1*
Ramachandran Sundram2*Venugopalan Rangarajan2Rajendiran Selladurai2
Arivalagan Manivannan2
Anoop Kumar Srivastava3Kanakanahalli Gangadharappa Shilpa2Ruchitha Thimmarayappa2- 1Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (ICAR), Bengaluru, India
- 2ICAR - Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru, India
- 3ICAR - Central Citrus Research Institute, Nagpur, India
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Dragon fruit stands out all among fruits not only for its essential nutrients and antioxidant content but also for its aesthetic appeal. Its high demand in consumer preferences and marketing values makes it a sought-after fruit. However, its production is limited by poor agronomic practices, particularly suboptimal use of fertilizers. Therefore, this study aims to enhance dragon fruit production by improving fertilizer use efficiency, thereby increasing fruit yield without wastage of inorganic fertilizer. To achieve this objective, two dragon fruit pulp types, white and purple-red, were chosen as test crops, and a total of three independent variables with different graded levels of N:P:K combinations were utilized. Second-order rotatable design (SORD) particularly Box-Behnken design (BBD) was employed using response surface methodology (RSM) to fix the fertilizer treatment combinations, to study the yield response and optimization of fertilizer doses. The response outcomes of white pulp fruit yield per hectare (Y1) and purple red pulp fruit yield per hectare (Y2) of dragon fruit were predicted and verified for model adequacy. The results indicated that optimum fertilizer doses (N:P2O5:K2O) of 400:300:650 g/pillar/year and 700:400:350 g/pillar/year for white and purple red pulped dragon fruit, respectively, led to a desirable effect, resulting in maximum yields of 25.5 t ha-1 and 35.6 t ha-1 for white and purple red pulped dragon fruit, respectively.
Keywords: Dragon fruit, Optimization of fertilizer, Plant Growth, nutrient acquisition, fruit yield
Received: 08 Jul 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ganesan, Sundram, Rangarajan, Selladurai, Manivannan, Srivastava, Shilpa and Thimmarayappa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Karunakaran Ganesan, Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (ICAR), Bengaluru, India
Ramachandran Sundram, ICAR - Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru, India
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