Influence of methods of the crown formation on the apples quality

Abstract

The experimental plot is placed in the orchard “Codru - ST” Ltd. founded in 2000 with bench-grafting. Apple trees of the varieties Gala Must, Golden Reinders and Idared growth on dwarfing M9 rootstock, the distance of plantation between rows is 4.0 m, and between trees in the row is 1.0 m. From 2003 to 2006 was studied the productivity of the apple orchard, fruit weight and fruit diameter in dependence of slender spindle crown formation methods. It was established that the average weight of a fruit growing is dominated by the hereditary properties of variety, but is strongly influenced by multiple ecological and technological factors. The highest productivity of fruits et the varieties Gala Must, Golden Reinders and Idared was obtained in the variants with minimize of pruning’s degree at crown formation and design of 2 provisional horizontal branches through fixation on row direction constituting respectively 36.53 t/ha, 37.72 t/ha and 33.46 t/ha. The positive correlation found was between fruits size, fruits weight and crown formation methods. The conclusion is that the higher indices of fruit diameter were recorded at Idared variety 84-88% of “extra” class and 12-16% of 1st class, followed by Golden Reinders variety with 69-72% of “extra” class and 26-27 % of 1st class. Indices for smaller fruit diameter, but generally higher, were registered at Gala Must variety 61-67% of “extra” class and 35-39% of 1st class.