Articles
GROWTH AND PRODUCTIVITY OF SWEET CHERRY INTERSTEM TREES
In 1990 interstock trees of the varieties ‘Van’ and ‘Germersdorfi óriás’ were planted on mahaleb intergrafted with ‘Érdi bötermö’, ‘Pándy meggy’, Prob P. fruticosa hybrid, on sour cherry seedling intergrafted with ‘Meteor korai’ and ‘Debreceni bötermö’ to compare interstock trees to trees on mahaleb seedling, Colt, MaxMa 14, MaxMa 97, Korponay, Inmil and Prob rootstocks.
Trees were planted at spacing 5×3 m, 5 cm of the rootstock was exposed above soil line.
The whole interstock part (30 cm) was above soil line.
The paper presents the first six years’ results of the trial.
Intergrafted sour cherries on both mahaleb and sour cherry rootstock slightly reduced tree size, but the reduction was not significant.
Only Prob (P. fruticosa x mahaleb hybrid) reduced significantly the tree size.
The case of interstock Prob prove that using interstocks might provide a tool for tree size reduction, but efficient interstock should be selected for each variety.
The cumulative yield efficiency of ‘Van’ after sixth years was highest on Prob/mahaleb seedling interstock and on Prob as a direct rootstock.
Similarly the best yield efficiency was produced by Oppenheimer Selektion 1 (Prunus fruticosa) as interstock followed by Prob interstock on mahaleb root with ‘Germersdorfi óriás’. Other interstock combinations did not influence positively the yield efficiency of ‘Van’ and ‘Germersdorfi óriás’ sweet cherry trees, which concerns other dwarfing rootstocks (Inmil, Korponay, Prob) as well.
Fruit weight on rootstocks with low yield efficiency was generally larger except for Oppenheimer Selektion 1 and Prob interstocks on mahaleb root.