ISHS Acta Horticulturae 513: XXV International Horticultural Congress, Part 3: Culture Techniques with Special Emphasis on Environmental Implications, Disease, Pest Control and Integrated Pest Strategies
THE APPLE ORCHARD PLANTING SYSTEMS PUZZLE |
| Authors: | S.A. Hoying, T.L. Robinson |
| Keywords: | high density plantings, Malus domestica, orchard systems, rootstocks |
| Abstract:
The development of dwarfing apple rootstocks has provided fruit growers with the ability to plant higher and higher tree densities. This has been accompanied by the development of numerous systems of planting, pruning and training apple trees. This symposium focused on the practical aspects of the leading apple planting systems from around the world with the goal of understanding the common fundamental elements of all successful planting systems. There may be no perfect planting systems for all growers. When fruit growers plant a new orchard they must make decisions of variety, rootstock, spacing and training system that largely determine the future economic success of the orchard over its lifetime. The integration of these variables along with other variables such as tree quality, support system, tree arrangement, soil type, climate and management ability is often referred to as the orchard systems puzzle. The successful integration of these puzzle pieces can lead to high early yields, high sustained yields and excellent fruit quality with any one of several orchard planting systems. Ignoring one or more of the puzzle pieces has resulted in considerable variability in grower success when planting new orchards. The most important sources of this variability will be explored in this symposium. | |
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