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COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF PEACH AND NECTARINE CULTIVARS TRAINED TO PERMANENT CANOPY IN PROTECTED CULTURE IN SICILY
The experiment was conducted at the agricultural farm ‹‹Samuele›› belonging to the Musso brothers and located in the south-eastern coast of Sicily.
Trees of 5 peach cultivars (‘Maravilha’, ‘S. Pedro’, ‘Goldcrest’, ‘Flordaprince’, ‘Flordastar’) and 1 nectarine cultivar (‘Mayfire’) were compared in protected culture.
Trees of ‘GF677’ rootstocks, budded in September 1990, were randomly planted in January 1991 with a planting density of 5,000 trees/ha (2 x 1 m). Trees were trained to permanent canopy and protected with ‹‹EVA›› plastic film.
Observations, over 4 years spanning 1992–1995, were performed on 15 trees per cultivar and the following characteristics were scored: index of fertility, time and entity of flowering, fruit set, ripening time, productivity, fruit characteristics.
The index of fertility was found to be high in ‘Maravilha’ (0.85) and extremely low in ‘Goldcrest’ (0.25) and ‘Mayfire’ (0.30). Ripening time appeared to be very anticipated in ‘Flordaprince’ and ‘Maravilha’, while it was strongly delayed in ‘Goldcrest’ and ‘Mayfire’. Productivity had the highest values in ‘Maravilha’ (34 t/ha) and ‘S. Pedro’ (35 t/ha), followed by ‘Flordaprince’ (27 t/ha). ‘Mayfire’ and ‘Goldcrest’, on the other hand, showed insufficient productivity rates.
Moreover, ‘Maravilha’ and ‘S. Pedro’ exhibited a noteworthy mean fruit weight (105 and 109 g, respectively), while fruit size appeared to be insufficient for commercial purposes in ‘Goldcrest’ and ‘Mayfire’ (66 and 70 g, respectively).