EVALUATION OF NEW ROOTSTOCKS FOR ‘VANDA’ SWEET CHERRY IN POLISH CLIMATIC CONDITIONS

Sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) trees of ‘Vanda’ grafted on ‘GiSelA 5’, ‘Maxma 14’ (Delbard Brokforest), ‘Weiroot 158’, ‘Tabel Edabriz’, ‘P-HL A’, ‘P-HL B’, ‘P-HL C’ and the vigorous rootstock ‘F 12/1’ (control) were compared.
One-year-old trees were planted in spring 2000 at the Experimental Station in Dąbrowice, near Skierniewice (Central Poland), on a gray-brown podzolic soil using two planting densities: 5.0 x 1.5 m and 5.0 x 2.5 m.
Tree vigour, yield, fruit weight and soluble solids content, and the number of suckers per tree were evaluated during 2003–2004.
All rootstocks except ‘Maxma 14’ significantly reduced tree growth in comparison to F 12/1, regardless of the distance between the trees in a row.
Trunk cross-sectional areas of five-year-old trees grafted on ‘GiSelA 5’ were 42% (at the 2.5 m spacing) to 47% (at 1.5 m) smaller than those on F 12/1. Depending on the planting density, tree growth was limited by ‘Maxma 14’ only 7 to 9%, ‘Weiroot 158’ from 35 to 45%, ‘Tabel Edabriz’ from 57 to 60%, ‘P-HL A’ from 43 to 49%, ‘P-HL B’ from 31 to 49% and ‘P-HL C’ from 52 to 54%, respectively.
Cumulative yields (kg/tree) for all of the dwarfing rootstocks except ‘P-HL B’ and ‘P-HL C’ were significantly higher than those for the control trees.
Trees grafted on ‘GiSelA 5’ were the most productive.
This rootstock also had an influence on fruit weight.
The smallest fruit size was for trees grafted on ‘Tabel Edabriz’, especially those planted 1.5 m apart.
Trees grafted on ‘P-HL C’ tended to produce suckers.
No suckering was observed in trees grafted on ‘GiSelA 5’, ‘Maxma 14’ or ‘Tabel Edabriz’.

V International Cherry Symposium

Z.S. Grzyb, M. Sitarek, B. Koziński

Prunus avium, cultivar, tree growth, yield, fruit weight

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2008.795.29