ISHS Acta Horticulturae 825: I Balkan Symposium on Fruit Growing
TRAINING AND PRUNING OF APPLE TREES ACCORDING TO THE NEW SYSTEM 'CONE' |
| Author: | S. Gandev |
| Keywords: | Malus domestica L., orchard system, yield, fruit size |
| DOI: | 10.17660/ActaHortic.2009.825.73 |
| Abstract:
In the near past mainly spur apple cultivars, such as ‘Starkrimson’, ‘Delicious’, ‘Yellowspur’, etc., grafted on ММ106 rootstock and trained to the free growing spindle-type bush system, were grown in Bulgaria. Nowadays, the spur cultivars are replaced by cultivars such as ‘Jonagold’, ‘Melrose’, ‘Florina’, etc., which do not belong to the group of the spur cultivars, they are of another fruiting type and they have more vigorous growth. The aim of the experiment was to develop and study a new apple training system suitable for growing non-spur cultivars on ММ106 rootstock in intensive orchards. The experiment was carried out in the period 2000-2007 with the ‘Jonagold’ apple cultivar grafted on ММ106 rootstock, planted at a distance of 4.5 x 2.5 m. The free growing spindly-type bush training system was used as a control. On the basis of the large number of pruning variants applied, the one leading to the best results was selected. The developed new training system was called ‘Cone’ system. Data showed that higher and better quality yields were obtained from the trees trained to the cone system compared to the yields harvested from trees trained to the free growing spindle-type bush system. The total yield reported from the cone system was 160.6 t/ha and from the free growing spindle-type bush training system it was 111.6 t/ha. In the years of the experiment, the percentage of fruits of a size over 80 mm from the trees trained to the cone system surpassed that of the trees of the free growing spindle-type bush training system. | |
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