NEW DATA ON THE TRAINING OF DWARF SWEET CHERRY TREES ON A PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS

Agrotechnical methods developed for dwarfing make the trees do some of the work instead of the grower, by mobilizing the self-regulatory system of the fruit trees in the desired direction.
This dwarfing was achieved using pruning methods with a bending effect (sectorial double pruning, delayed sectorial double pruning). These methods were improved further by the addition of a new component, epinastic bending, which provides oblique shoots for pruning to upper buds without bending or tying, by means of pruning a vertical or near-vertical shoot to an outside bud.

For a similar purpose, the balanced application of mechanical crown and root pruning (i.e. correlative mechanical fruit tree pruning) restores or improves the yield potential within a smaller, "dwarfed" crown volume.
Recent experience and analyses indicate that its effect is more permanent than expected, due to the fundamental changes wrought in the trees.

The above methods reduce the manual labour requirements of bending to between a third and a sixth, while the number of working hours required for manual pruning is reduced by 50–200 hours per hectare per year.

II International Cherry Symposium

T. Brunner, L. Juhász, E. Páldi

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1996.410.43