Articles
THE BEHAVIOUR OF SOME APPLE TREE VARIETIES IN “MEADOW-ORCHARD” SYSTEM
The following varieties were used: Golden Delicious, Jonathan, Starkspur Golden Delicious, Starkrimson, Wagener Price, Red Melba, James Grieve, Winter Pearmain and Granny Smith.
The trees were planted at a spacing of 45 x 30 cm and 45 x 40 cm, the rows forming bands of about 6 m width, with 3 m between bands, giving thus densities to 52 700 trees/ha.
In the spring of 1973, for all varieties (except Golden Delicious) the rootstocks of MM. 106 were planted and then they were budded in the summer of the same year.
For Golden Delicious the cut back maiden trees were planted in the spring of 1974. In the first year of growth, different treatments were applied: Alar 2 000 ppm.
Ethrel 1 000 ppm and a mixture of Alar 1 000 ppm with Ethrel 500 ppm; a uniform treatment with Alar 2 000 ppm was applied at the petal fall, in the second year.
The retardants greatly reduced the vegetative growth of Wagener Price, Winter Pearmain, Golden Delicious, Starkspur Golden Delicious and James Grieve and increased the cropping of Golden Delicious, Starkspur Golden Delicious, Red Melba, Winter Pearmain and Wagener Price.
It has been proved that Wagener Price is a suitable variety for the "meadow-orchard" system as it has a great uniformity in fruit bearing and gives heavy yields (90. 2 tons/ha). Also Golden Delicious and Starkspur Golden Delicious can respond favourably to growth retardant applications and can give crops of a high quality (47. 7 tons/ha).