Effect of Pruning and Partial Disbudding on the Cropping of Comice and Beurré Hardy Pears

Abstract

SummaryThe effects of three intensities of pruning on fruit set, fruit bud development, cropping and vigour of intensively grown Cornice and Beurre Hardy pears were compared over a three-year period. Severe pruning, in which extension shoots were cut back to fruit buds on the two-year-old wood, greatly increased the set of fruits per 100 flower clusters and reduced vigour, in comparison with a renewal type of pruning. Severe pruning of Comice caused a relative reduction in the number of fruit buds in subsequent years, so the improvement in fruit set did not lead to an increase in crop per tree, but with Beurre Hardy fruit bud formation was unaffected and the crop per tree was increased by hard pruning. There was an improvement in yield in relation to tree size with both varieties. Pruning to fruit buds provides a means of increasing yields per acre by ‘containing’ pear trees at close spacings without reducing the yield per tree.Partial disbudding just before blossoming increased fruit set but not enough t...