Growth and Productivity of Sweet Cherry Varieties on Hungarian Clonal Prunus mahaleb (L.) Rootstocks

Abstract

Due to climate changes, drought- and lime-tolerant Prunus mahaleb rootstock may gain importance. Among the Mahaleb rootstocks and hybrids, there are standard and moderate-vigorous types, but their intensive testing in orchards is still needed. Our paper reports on testing rootstocks SL 64, Bogdány, Magyar, SM 11/4 clonal Mahalebs, and the hybrid MaxMa 14. ‘Carmen’, ‘Vera’, ‘Paulus’, and ‘Rita’ sweet cherry trees were trained on the above rootstocks to the principles of Hungarian Cherry Spindle at a spacing of 1.6 × 5 m. Rootstocks SL 64, Bogdány, and SM 11/4 proved to be vigorous, while on rootstocks Magyar and MaxMa 14, the trees were moderately vigorous, about 80%. ‘Carmen’, ‘Vera’, and ‘Rita’ on Magyar and MaxMa 14 produced high cumulative yields without significant differences, while ‘Paulus’ trees were most productive on Bogdány rootstock. ‘Carmen’ on Bogdány rootstock, ‘Vera’ on Magyar and Maxma 14 rootstock, and ‘Rita’ on MaxMa 14 were more precocious than on SL 64. Contrary to SL 64 and MaxMa 14, both Magyar and Bogdány rootstocks resulted in abundant flat branching and good fruit size. Our conclusion is that trees on Magyar and Bogdány rootstocks fit well to the Hungarian Cherry Spindle orchard system with 1250 tree/ha orchard density.