Abstract
Abstract The aim of the current research was to evaluate the impact of ‘Eva’ apple tress cultivation under nets with different colors as opposed to cultivation deprived of net treatment on the attributes related to the vigor of the plant, production and fruit quality. The evaluations were carried out during the 2017/18 and 2018/19 crop growing seasons at commercial production fields located in the municipality of Porto Amazonas, PR. The treatments in study consisted of a control (plants grown with no protecting net), along with plants protected by anti-hail nets of distinct colors such as white, crystal (transparent) and black. The following response variables were assessed herein: length and diameter of the branch, plant height and branch diameter as plant vigor measurements, crop production (kg plant-1) and yield (kg ha-1), and number of fruits per plant as to productive yield of the cropping system, as well as shape (height and diameter) of the fruits, mass, Hue angle, firmness, soluble solids and titratable acidity to test grade or fruit quality. There was no significant effect of protecting nets on both vigor and development of the plants. However, production and yield were consistently more expressive under crystal and white protecting nets throughout the second crop growing season. This demonstrated that ‘Eva’ apple trees were conducive to render as well as or even better than those plants bereft of protecting nets in view of the fact that the former treatments caused the plants to suffer less harmful impacts promoted by hail events, excess of wind, and sun burning disorders. The black anti-hail net resulted in negative outcomes as to coloration of the fruits in conjunction with titratable acidity, making them reddish and acidic and, therefore, less attractive for in natura commercial consumption.
Highlights
The cultivation of apple trees (Malus domestica Borkh) promotes remarkable bursts either in national or international agrobusiness, since it favors growth of municipalities all over the world in such a fashion as to generate jobs and substantial incomes
There is no scientific evidence describing the performance of such a genotype grown under protecting net conditions. In light of such a gap in research, this study aimed to evaluate the impacts of protecting nets with different colors compared to no screen treatment on the agronomical responses of Eva cultivar expressed by crop aspects related to plant growth, yield and fruit quality in the region of Campos Gerais do Paraná, Brazil
According to Manja and Aoun (2019), the use of colorful net might be able to be conducive to vegetative growth of apple tree plants due to changes in the orchard microclimate that lead to reductions in leaf and air temperature regime in conjunction with low atmospheric evaporative demand rates, which will advantage net photosynthesis
Summary
The cultivation of apple trees (Malus domestica Borkh) promotes remarkable bursts either in national or international agrobusiness, since it favors growth of municipalities all over the world in such a fashion as to generate jobs and substantial incomes. The world apple tree productions reached the mark of 86.1 million of tons of fruits in 2018, from 4.9 million hectares harvested, where as in Brazil at Southern region productions soared to roughly 1.2 million of tons from 33 million hectares harvested (FAO, 2020). One of the current alternatives to be adopted in apple tree orchards lies in the usage of protecting nets with different colors, which possess a photo-selective action and in turn prevents injuries caused by hail events (MANJA and AOUN, 2019). Apart from a conspicuous anti-hail function, such protecting nets might play a role in mitigating the impacts promoted by excess of wind and heat at a given specific-site, reduce physiological disturbs due to sun burning exposures, increase yield uniformity and guarantee rentability plus profitability at commercial apple tree orchards (MANJA and AOUN, 2019; SERVER et al, 2020)
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