ISHS Acta Horticulturae 557: VII International Symposium on Orchard and Plantation Systems
IMPROVEMENT OF ORCHARD MANAGEMENT BY A NON-EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO FRUIT SCIENCE |
| Author: | T. Kikuchi |
| Keywords: | non-experimental approach, hypothesis formation, experiment repeatability, field observation, orchard management |
| Abstract:
Fruit science has been developed mainly as an experimental science. However, especially in the field of orchard management, experiments often fail to bring about information of general validity, mainly due to the low repeatability of the experiments. Therefore, a non-experimental approach to fruit science is proposed. This approach does not analyze the components of certain phenomena but rather it constructs hypotheses by compiling information mainly from extensive field observations as well as literature reviews. In this approach, field observations would be used mainly to verify or modify these hypotheses. Preferably the hypotheses would be in the form of models that involve continuous changes of tree status as related to continuous changes of cultural and/or environmental conditions. Based on such a non-experimental approach, four studies are examined: (1) the architectural requirements of conventional Japanese open-center apple trees for proper development are identified: (2) the "ideotype + continuous change" model is proposed as a more generalized form of the architectural model. From the above studies it is emphasized that relatively small numbers of architectural requirements are essential to the success of a certain training system and these requirements change continuously according to the continuous changes of cultural and/or environmental changes: (3) the feedback-based model of growth control is given as an example of an effective tool in dealing with pruning studies when whole tree responses are concerned: (4) a way of investigation by means of many simple experiments on trees with branching systems is proposed for the study of pruning effects in tree parts. The non-experimental approach is expected to complement the experimental approach and to increase the value of fruit science for practical fruit growing. | |
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