Influence of two training systems on growth, yield and fruit attributes of four apple cultivars grafted onto ‘M.9’ rootstock

Abstract

This research was carried out to compare several attributes pertaining to the growth, fruit and yield of four apple cultivars, i.e. ‘Golab-kohans’, ‘Fuji’, ‘Starking’ and ‘Delbar estival’. These cultivars were grafted onto M.9 rootstocks trained into ‘Guttingen V-slender-spindle (or V-system) and ‘Geneva Y-trellis (or Y-system) systems. Compared to the Y-system, it was observed that the V-system caused the trees to yield more fruits, dry matter, ash and total soluble solids (TSS). In contrast, the Y-system caused the trees to have broader trunk cross sectional areas (TCSA), along with higher yield, fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit length and fruit firmness, compared to trees trained with the V-system. In summary, these results showed that both systems can be employed as promising approaches, but the ‘Y-system’ appears to be more productive than the ‘V-system’. In addition, among the studied cultivars, it seems that the ‘Delbar estival’ and ‘Fuji’ were more adaptive to these intensive training systems, especially when considering the fruit traits.