INFLUENCE OF SEVERAL ROOTSTOCKS ON FOLIAR NUTRITION IN PEACH

The use of grafting has been widely spread in many countries for fruit crops as well as certain vegetable crops, allowing improvement of the characteristics of the scion, improved absorption and the utilization efficiency of water and nutrients. The current study aimed to evaluate the differences between the rootstocks regarding its influence on the mineral composition of leaves of ‘Chimarrita’ and ‘Maciel’ peaches, as well as identifying which nutrients are the most important for these differences.
The leaves were collected in 2009 and 2010 from two peach cultivars grafted on six rootstocks: ‘Aldrighi’, ‘Capdeboscq’, ‘Flordaguard’, ‘Nemaguard’, ‘Okinawa’ and ‘Umezeiro’, trained to “V” system, at 1.5 x 5.0 m spacing in three cultivation regions.
Leaf content of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron and manganese were analyzed.
The capacity of absorption of nutrients was influenced by the peach rootstock, the scion and the mineral composition of the soil in place.
The rootstock ‘Umezeiro’ provided the largest variability.
Calcium, magnesium, iron and manganese were the nutrients who contributed to the greater variation in the mineral composition of peach.
Despite the variability between regions in relation nutrients absorption of there was no significant difference in fruit quality and production, just gave lower yield and canopy volume to ‘Chimarrita’ over ‘Humezeiro’.

VIII International Peach Symposium

S. Padilha Galarça, C.S.M. Lima, J.C. Fachinello, A. Pretto , L.C. Vahl, D.L. Betemps

Prunus persica L. (Batsch), mineral composition

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2015.1084.8