EFFECTS OF GA₃ AND PACLOBUTRAZOL TREATMENT ON FRUIT SET AND YIELD OF ‘BEURRÉ BOSC’ AND ‘TRIUMF’ PEARS CULTIVARS

Fruit set of pear could be low and unpredictable because the pear trees bloom earlier than apple and the weather might be unfavourable for pollination.
To improve the fruit set, an experiment with ‘Beurré Bosc’ and ‘Triumf’ (Romanian cultivar created by Braniste) pears using the GA₃ and paclobutrazol was organized at the Research Institute for Fruit Growing Pitesti – Maracineni, Romania.
The GA₃ application was done in two stages: the first one when 80% of the flowers were open and the second one, 5 days after the petals fall.
For GA₃ concentrations were used: 20, 50 and 100 ppm.
Paclobutrazol (3000 ppm) was foliar applied in two stages: the first application when the shoots had 7–6 cm in length, the second one, after the harvesting.
The results emphasized the positive effect of the GA₃ application (50 ppm), 88% fruit set for ‘Beurré Bosc’ (51% control) and 76% for ‘Triumf’ (72% control). The paclobutrazol application reduced the vegetative growths by 35% on ‘Beurré Bosc’ and by 42% on ‘Triumf’. Next year a high number of buds developed but the fruit were of poor quality with ‘Beurré Bosc’.

X International Pear Symposium

V. Chitu, E. Chitu, N. Branişte

Pyrus × communis L., temperature, GA₃ fruit set, yield, fruit quality, paclobutrazol, flower bud

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2008.800.15