PERFORMANCE AND SUITABILITY FOR MECHANICAL HARVESTING OF PROCESSING APRICOTS: A COMPARISON OF SIX CULTIVARS, TWO TRAINING SYSTEMS AND PRUNE INTERSTOCK

ISHS Acta Horticulturae 121: VII Symposium on Apricot Culture and Decline

PERFORMANCE AND SUITABILITY FOR MECHANICAL HARVESTING OF PROCESSING APRICOTS: A COMPARISON OF SIX CULTIVARS, TWO TRAINING SYSTEMS AND PRUNE INTERSTOCK

Authors:

S. SANSAVINI, G. COSTA, M. GRANDI, U. LUNATI

Abstract:
The increasing demand for apricot products (fruit juices, jams and jellies, canned or dried fruits, a.s.o) in recent years indicates a new favorable outlook in several countries for apricot culture. The apricot industry, then, requires cultivars, rootstocks, planting systems and growing methods to meet the requirements of the processing industry. Especially important are a consistent and high bearing capacity to limit costs and to reduce dependence on manpower, particularly for the picking work. As a result, the introduction of mechanical harvesting which already covers 10% of overall apricot production in USA (Zahara et al., 1979) becomes increasingly worthwhile.

This need is especially strong in Italy at this time, and the present project was directed towards studying the following three aspects of mechanical harvesting:

Choice of the grafting combination with myrobalan rootstock with or without a prune stem piece cv. “Stanley”. The prune interstock was used both to overcome grafting incompatibility between apricot and myrobalan and to positively affect the tree efficiency or at least to induce more concentrated and early ripening.
Comparison of two training forms, free and vase (open center) both with suitable trunk heights to apply mechanical shaking.
Evaluation of suitability for mechanical harvesting of various cultivars chosen from among those which previous studies indicated as suitable for processing or for mechanical harvesting (Sansavini et al., 1975).

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