INFLUENCE OF FIVE ORCHARD MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ON CANOPY COMPOSITION, LIGHT PENETRATION AND NET PHOTOSYNTHESIS OF ‘GOLDEN DELICIOUS’ APPLE

‘Smoothee Golden Delicious’ apple trees in the following orchard management systems established in 1979 were evaluated for canopy composition and efficiency in 1985 and 1986: 3-wire palmette trellis (1493 t/ha); pruned and unpruned Lincoln canopy (1493 t/ha); spindle bush (3986 t/ha); and central leader (270 t/ha). In both years the unpruned Lincoln canopy had the greatest total area of shoot leaves in a standardized 0.5 m sided sample volume and the central leader tended to have lower total shoot leaf area.
In 1985 spur leaf area was highest in the central leader trees while in 1986 spindle bush and unpruned Lincoln canopy trees also had high concentrations of spur leaves.
In 1985 the east side of the canopy had higher quality spurs than the west in all parameters except SLW, while there was no difference in spur quality due to canopy side in 1986. Following severe dormant pruning, the Lincoln canopy trees had high light transmission values in 1985, but following only modest pruning a very dense canopy developed in 1986 with very low transmission values.
The trellis and central leader trees had high Pn rates in shoot leaves on the canopy periphery on the east side in the morning and west side in the afternoon with lower Pn rates on the west in the morning and east in the afternoon.
Light during the afternoon appeared to have significant correlations to fruit size.

IV International Symposium on Research and Development on Orchard and Plantation Systems

D.C. Ferree, J.R. Schupp, I.J. Warrington, S.H. Blizzard, T.A. Baugher

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1989.243.17