Behaviour of some cherry cultivars under parallel Trident planting system

The parallel Trident canopy was studied in a young sweet cherry orchard planted on the Romanian plain on cernozem-black soil in early spring of 2008. Nine sweet cherry cultivars: ‘Celeste’, ‘Ferrovia’, ‘Kordia’, ‘Lapins’, ‘New Star’, ‘Van’, ‘Early Red’, ‘Firm Red’ and ‘Giant Red’, were planted at 4.0 × 2.0 m.
The first six cultivars were grafted on PHL-C rootstock, ‘Giant Red’ on CAB 6P, ‘Early Red’ on CAB 11E, while ‘Firm Red’ was grafted on CAB 6P and CAB 11E, respectively.
Trees were trained on a wire trellis fixed on 3.5 m high pine poles.
Typical winter and summer pruning, completed with the three axes leading on trellis wires have been used to form a parallel Trident canopy.
An integrated pest management was applied.
The vegetative growth was evaluated using tree height and trunk cross sectional area.
Trees productivity indexes (Pi3 and Pi4) were compared after harvest by reporting the yield and the number of fruits per unit of trunk cross-sectional surface area.
Some fruit characteristics were analyzed.
CAB 6P, gave the most vigorous trees, followed by CAB 11E and PHL-C. ‘Van’/PHL-C was the most productive, followed by ‘New Star’/PHL-C and ‘Giant Red’, grafted on CAB 6P. CAB 6P showed the tendency for higher yield and better fruit quality.
Good yield and excellent fruit quality was registered with ‘Giant Red’ and ‘Early Red’ cultivars.
The parallel Trident appeared to be a suitable planting system for the medium density sweet cherry orchards with semi-vigorous and semi-dwarfing rootstocks.

XXIX International Horticultural Congress on Horticulture: Sustaining Lives, Livelihoods and Landscapes (IHC2014): International Symposia on the Physiology of Perennial Fruit Crops and Production Systems and Mechanisation, Precision Horticulture and Robotics

F. Stănică, A.C. Asănică, S.C. Grigore, O.M. Cârstea

Cerasus avium, cultivars, rootstocks, canopy, growth, productivity index

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2016.1130.24