Bael (Aegle marmelos) is a native fruit tree of India commonly found in temple gardens. It has wide adaptability and can grow in subtropical climates with hot, dry summers and mild winters up to 1200m elevation. Popular varieties include Narendra bael-5, Pant Shivani, and Goma Yashi. Bael trees are planted at 8-10m spacing and produce 30-45 fruits at 6-7 years old, yielding 500-800 fruits at 30-40 years. Pests include termites and caterpillars while diseases include fruit rot. Fruits are used to make toffee, squash, powder, jam and more.

2. ADVANCED PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY OF BAEL
Submitted by :
Pawan Kumar Nagar
M.Sc. (Horticulture) Fruit Science
04-2690-2015

3. BAEL
Botanical Name : Aegle marmelos
Family: Rutaceae

4. INTRODUCTION
 Bael (Aegel marmelos) is an indigenous fruit tree of India.
 The deciduous tree with trifoliate aromatic leaves is traditionally
used as sacred offering to ‘Lord Shiva’.
 It is commonly planted in temple garden.
 As wild Bael is found in Utter Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and
Madhya Pradesh.
 Fruit is hard shelled berry and very well known for its medicinal
properties due to marmelosin content.
 The ripe fruit is tonic, restorative, laxative and good for heart an
brain.

5. CLIMATE
 Owing to hardy nature, bael tree has a wide adaptability
to adverse soil and climatic condition.
 It require subtropical climate where summer is hot and
dry, and winter is mild.
 Plants can grow even up to an elevation of 1,200m.
 They are not damaged by temperature as low as -7⁰C.

6. SOIL
 A well drained, sandy loam soil is ideal.
 It can thrive even on poor and clay soil.
 It can stand sodicity up to 30 ESP and salinity up to
9ds/m EC.

7. VARIETIES
 Narendra bael - 5 :
 The plants are small and semi spreading growth habit,
precocious and prolific in bearing.
 The budded plants start fruiting in the 4th year, the
average fruit yield of six year old plant is 28.78 kg.
 fruits are medium in size, round, with smooth surface
and very thin rind, straw yellow at maturity, low in
mucilage, moderately fibrous.
 Release from N D university Agriculture and technology,
Faizabad,UP.

9.  Pant Shivani :
 It is a early mid season variety.
 Trees are tall, vigorous, dense, upright growing,
precocious and heavy bearer.
 Fruit shape is ovoid, oblong and the size being 18.50
cm × 15.00 cm. fruit weight ranges from 2 to 2.4kg.
 colour of fruit is lemon yellow and its storage quality
is good.
 Release from G B Pant university of Agriculture and
technology, Pant Nagar, Uttarakhand.

10.  Goma Yashi :
 It is early maturing variety, semi – spreading,
dropping growth habit, less lateral branches growth,
budded plants of goma yashi start flowering in 3rd
year.
 Fruit size 13.00cm × 12.50cm. yield 51kg/ tree.
 Released from Central Horticultural Experiment
Station, Vejalpur.

11. OTHER VARIETIES:
 Narendra bael-9 :- N D University Of Agriculture and
Technology, Faizabad, UP.
 Narendra bael-7:- N D University Of Agriculture and
Technology, Faizabad, UP.
 Pant aparna:- G B Pant university of Agriculture and
technology, Pant Nagar, Uttara Khand.
 Pant sujata:- G B Pant university of Agriculture and
technology, Pant Nagar, Uttara Khand.
 CISHB-1:- Central Institute for Sub-tropical Horticulture,
lucknow
 CISHB-2:- Central Institute for Sub-tropical Horticulture,
lucknow

15. PLANTING
 Bael plants should be planted at a distance of 8mˣ8m or
10m x 10m (seedling).
 Pits of 90cm x 90cm x 90cm size are dug and filled with
a mixture of top soil + 25kg FYM up to level of 6cm
from the ground level.
 Irrigate the pits to settle down the soil.
 February-March or July-August is the right time for
planting.

16. TRAINING AND PRUNING
 Young plants are trained with the help of stakes so that
they can grow straight.
 To provide good framework of the individual tree, the
tip of main stem should be removed at a height of about
1m.
 Select only 4-6 well spaced branches.
 Pruning in Bael is normally not done.
 Dead, diseased, weak and crossing branches are prunned
off.

17. MANURES AND FERTILIZATION
 Little or no systematic work has been done on its nutritional
requirements.
 Apply 10kg FYM, 50kg N, 25kg P, 50kg K/plant to one
year old plants.
 This dose should be increase every year in the same
praportion up to the 10 year.
 FYM should be applied in beginning of May.
 Half dose of N, full dose of P and half dose of K should be
given just before flowering.
 Remaining half dose of N and K should be given in the last
week of August.
 Manures and fertilizers should be spread under whole canopy
of the tree.

18. IRRIGATION
 Plants need to be cared for watering.
 Basin system providing more uniform distribution of
water should be used for irrigation of young plants.
 Irrigation to young plantation should be given at 20 days
interval in summer.
 In bearing orchard, first irrigation should be given after
manuring and fertilization.
 Irrigation at monthly intervals should be given after the
rainy season (October-April)

19. HARVESTING AND POSTHARVEST
MANAGEMENT
 Bael is used for preserve making, hence mature green fruits
are ideal for harvesting.
 Fruits become fully mature 8 months after fruit set.
 At this stage shell (peel) changes from deep green to light
green and flesh (pulp) from light yellow to deep yellow.
 Fruits take about 11 months after fruit set to ripen on the tree.
 Its ripening can be advance by 45bdays with pre-harvest
treatment of Ethephon (1000ppm) during 1st week of Feb.
or 9 months after fruit set.
 There is no standard grading of bael fruits. Fruits are mostly
packed in gunny bags and some times in basket for
transportation and marketing.

20. YIELD
 The number of fruits per tree may vary from 30 – 45 at
the age of 6 – 7 years. depending on genotype, soil and
climatic condition. However, a seedling tree at the 30-40
years age can yield 500-800 fruit.

21. USE
 Toffee
 Squash
 Powder
 Jam
 Slab
 Ready to serve

23. PEST
1. Termite attack on new saplings is major peoblem.
Application of chlorpyriphos @ 2-3 ml/lit/plant has been
found effectively to control the termite.
2. Leaf eating cater pillars cause damage to the plant
and it can be control by 2-3 spray of dimethoate @ 1.5-
2.0 ml/lit at 15 days intervals.

24. Termites
Leaf eating cater pillars

25. DISEASE
 Fruit rot:
 Internal rotting of fruit is serious problem, which is
mainly caused by damage to fruits during harvesting,
storage and transportation or maintain proper ventilation
during storage.
 Avoid storage in enclosures especially in polythene.
Such disease problem can be avoided by harvesting of
fully mature fruits and also to avoid damage to the fruit
and wrapped / stored with news paper or phenol papers.

26. Fruit rot

27. PHYSIOLOGICAL DISORDER
 Fruit cracking:
 Fruit cracking has been observed as a major
physiological disorder and its degree of damage depends
according to genotypes / varieties and locality.
 The cracking can be minimized by maintaining optimum
soil moisture regime and by provision of winds breaks
against hot desiccating wind side of orchard.

28. Fruit cracking

29. REFERENCES
 Handbook of horticulture by K. L. Chadha.
 Management of horticultural crops (Part-1) by T.
Pradeep kumar, B. Suma, Jyothibhaskar and K.
N. Satheesan.
 A handbook of fruit production by S. Prasad and
U. Kumar.
 www. fruitemedia.com