Volume 59 Number 2 Article 16
Year 2005 Month 4
Title: Natural Growth Habit of Sweet Cherry Maiden Trees
Authors: T. Jacyna, J. Barnard and R.L. Andersen
Abstract:
Natural growth habit of maiden trees of standard and newly released sweet cherry cultivars grafted on either Prunus
mahaleb or Giessen rootstocks were examined during two production seasons.
Trees on Giessen rootstocks were
less vigorous than those on P. mahaleb. The performance of the trees, assessed by measuring the total number of
lateral shoots (TNS), tree height (TH), and trunk diameter (TD), was qualitatively consistent over the two seasons.
Among the ten cultivars on P. mahaleb rootstock there were two groups of cultivars distinguished by branching
behavior with two outstanding cultivars, namely 'Van' (mean: 8.1 TNS/year) and 'Bing' (mean: 1.9 TNS/year).
Comparison of values for these quality characteristics, especially for TNS, between the cultivars grafted on
different Giessen rootstocks, showed that the cultivar per se was the main factor influencing branching behavior.
A morphological description of maiden trees of newly released sweet cherry cultivars from Cornell University is
given.
For trees of most of the cultivars, the correlations between TNS and TD were significant, whereas those
between TNS and TH were not.
The possibility of using TD as a parameter for estimating a tree's ability to produce
lateral shoots is discussed.
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