Quantitative morphological and histological studies on the effect of pruning back the branches of "Gloster" apple trees
1990
Tomoskozi, M. | Brunner, T. (Kerteszeti es Elelmiszerip. Egyet., (Hungary). Novenytani Tansz.)
Even on poor stocks, fruit trees with intensive growth attain a size greater than desirable for present methods of cultivation. One way of restricting growth is to apply correlative mechanical pruning to which both the crown and the roots are subjected. Five types of experiment were set up on 7-year old free spindle Gloster trees in order to study the effects of the pruning: correlative mechanical pruning of the 4 m high trees by topping at a height of 2.2 m with root pruning at a depth of 70 cm, mechanical topping at 2.2 m, mechanical prunning at 1.6 m with root pruning at a depth of 70 cm, mechanical topping at 1.6 m, slight thinning, as carried out on farms. Histological analyses were carried out, and measurements were made on the thickness of the phloem, the wood and the pith from the centre. After the 1st pruning the shoot growth on treated trees showed a sharp decrease at all 3 levels of the crown, whereas that of trees subjected to crown pruning only showed a considerable increase, particularly at the top. The shoot growth in the 2nd year was more balanced, but here too, trees topped to 1.60 m without root pruning had the most intensive shoot growth. Branches originating from the top of the crown were the thickest. Mechanical pruning increased the ratio of the phloem, thus weakening growth, improving the fruiting tendency and giving better fruit colour and quality.
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