Impact of Pruning Period and Intensity on the Growth and Yield of Rosa roxburghii : A Sustainable Approach for Enhanced Agricultural Productivity

An experiment on 5‐year‐old ‘Qing‐feng’ and 6‐year‐old ‘Yan‐hong’ peach trees (Prunus persica L.) compared a dormant “long pruning” (LP) treatment with a traditional “short pruning” (SP) treatment near Beijing, China. The responses of tree vegetative growth were studied on length and number of new shoots, seasonal evolution of leaf number, distribution and general growth evolution of new shoots along 1 ‐year‐old wood, and rejuvenation of wood older than 1‐year‐old. Results showed that LP had several advantages over SP: moderate vegetative growth of tree, resulting in reduced average length of new shoots and total growth of new shoots per tree; more rapid foliage development in the early growing season; and enhanced capacity for shoot rejuvenation, i.e., more new shoots occurring from wood older than 1 year. Moreover, in contrast to the SP trees, the longest new shoots on LP trees occurred at the basal position of 1‐year wood. The LP method for pruning peach trees may therefore be superior to than the traditional SP technique, especially in regions where climate and soil type favor vigorous tree growth.

This research was conducted in the plastic houses at Horticulture Dep. College of Agriculture and Forestry Mosul University, Iraq, to study the effect of three concentrations of auxin IBA 0, 1000 and 2000 mg/L and number of eyes on cuttings with two or three eyes on rooting and growth parameters of hardwood Grape cuttings. After Twelve weeks from culture date cuttings examined for rooting and vegetative growth. Cuttings with three eyes significantly show increase in all parameters as compared with cuttings with two eyes(rooting percentage, root number and length, fresh and dry root weight, new shoots, new leaves, number and length of new shoots, fresh and dry vegetative weight parameters, at the same time the two concentrations of auxin IBA 1000 and 2000 mg/L increased significantly all rooting and vegetative parameters, except the percentage of rooting and number of new shoots. However the interaction treatment (cutting with three eyes + 1000 mg/L IBA) gave a 100% of rooting percentage, but the highest average of ( root number and length , new leaves, number and length of new shoots) resulted from cutting with three eyes treated with 2000 mg/L IBA value which reached 20.10, 8.06cm, 15.77 , 2.27 and 11.72cm respectively .

A field experiment was conducted to find out the effect of different pruning levels on growth and physiological characters in mango (Mangifera indica L.) cv. Alphonso under ultra high density planting during 2010-2011 at Jain Irrigation Systems Limited (JISL) Farms, in Tamil Nadu. The treatments viz., control, light pruning, moderate pruning, heavy pruning, 50 per cent removal of past season growth and total removal of past season growth were imposed on five-year-old uniform sized Alphonso trees grown under spacing of 3 x 2 m. The highest fresh weight of pruned branches and maximum number of new flushes after pruning were registered in T 6 (total removal of past season’s growth). The same treatment recorded the maximum C: N ratio in leaves and shoots during harvesting stage. The highest tree height and canopy diameter (EW and NS) were recorded in T 1 (control). The treatment T 4 (heavy pruning) registered the maximum number of new shoots (8.20) emerged from pruned branch after pruning. The highest number of new shoots per plant was registered in control (T 1 ). The pruning treatments also influenced total chlorophyll contents. Control trees recorded the highest leaf area index in all months of observation compared to other treatments. The treatment T 5 (50 per cent removal of past season’s growth and tipping) recorded the highest light transmission ratio among the treatments.

Even though silicon is frequent compound in soil, its use in plant nutrient media is rare. Based on known physiological role and up to now performed studies it seems that silicon has a good potential to improve growth characteristics of in vitro cultivated plants. Before practical application, however, it is always necessary to assess the optimal conditions of application with regard to the fact that plant reactions to different chemicals added to nutritional media can vary on the species or even cultivar level. The presented study evaluate effects of potassium silicate used in in vitro cultivation media on growth parameters of Prunus persica × Prunus davidiana ‘Cadaman,‘ Prunus × amygdalopersica ‘GF 677‘ and Corylus avellana ‘Tonda di Giffoni‘ genotypes, which are frequently subject of commercial in vitro multiplication. In fact, four different concentrations of potassium silicate was added to the multiplication media, control medium was left silicon-free. Three different characteristics were observed during cultivation – number of new shoots per explant, weight of a new plant and length of new shoots, from which number of new shoots per explant was considered the most important factor. In all cases a positive effects of potassium silicate on the condition and other growth parameters of treated cultures were observed. In ‘Cadaman‘ culture significant growth changes appeared on media with 20 mg.l-1 potassium silicate, which can be recommended for future applications. For ‘GF 677‘ the best results were obtained on media with 2 mg.l-1 which can be recommended for improving condition and number of shoots on new plants. For hazelnut genotype ‘Tonda di Giffoni‘ best results were obtained on media with 10 mg.l-1 of potassium silicate, but also use of 5 mg.l-1 of potassium silicate significantly improved growth parameters. Generally, presented study provides important and practically useful insights into the practical use of silicon in cultivation media designated for commercial in vitro micropropagation.

Aims Fargesia nitida, one of the Giant Panda's main food sources, is adapted to varied canopy conditions through changes in morphology and/or biomass allocation. We hypothesized that changes in clonal regeneration may be another way for this plant to be adapted to different canopy conditions. Methods From August to September 2005, we measured the number, size and rhizome size of new shoots and the age and size of the parent ramet in four canopy conditions: forest understory (FU), moderate gap (MG), large gap (LG) and forest edge wilderness (FEW) in an Abies faxoniana forest in Wolong Nature Reserve in the western Sichuan, China. The data were analyzed by One-Way ANOVA, independent-sample t-test and regression. Important findings The density of surviving new shoots was lower in the FU than that in the other three canopy conditions. With decreasing canopy cover (i.e., from FU to MG to LG), the number of surviving new shoots per genet increased. At the ramet level, the mean height, basal diameter, and biomass of surviving new shoots and parent ramet were significantly different (p0.01) and increased as canopy cover decreased. In the different canopy conditions, the number of new shoots cloned by two-year-old primary parent ramets was the largest, but mean ages of parent ramets were not significantly different. There were no significant differences in average number and basal diameter of surviving new shoots reproduced by primary parent ramets with different ages in the same environment. In each canopy condition, the basal diameter of primary and secondary parent ramets were both positively correlated with basal diameter of surviving new shoots, but the effect of the primary parent ramets on surviving new shoots was stronger than that of the secondary parent ramets. The rhizome diameter of new shoots was positively correlated with the basal diameter of new shoots and primary parent ramet, but the rhizome length of surviving new shoots was not significantly correlated with basal diameter of the primary parent ramet. These results indicated that the clonal growth features exhibited significant differences strongly correlated with canopy conditions.

The new shoot density of slash pine serves as a vital indicator for assessing its growth and photosynthetic capacity, while the number of new shoots offers an intuitive reflection of this density. With deep learning methods becoming increasingly popular, automated counting of new shoots has greatly improved in recent years but is still limited by tedious and expensive data collection and labeling. To resolve these issues, this paper proposes a semi-supervised counting network (MTSC-Net) for estimating the number of slash pine new shoots. First, based on the mean-teacher framework, we introduce the improved VGG19 to extract multiscale new shoot features. Second, to connect local new shoot feature information with global channel features, attention feature fusion module is introduced to achieve effective feature fusion. Finally, the new shoot density map and density probability distribution are processed in a fine-grained manner through multiscale dilated convolution of the regression head and classification head. In addition, a masked image modeling strategy is introduced to encourage the contextual understanding of global new shoot features and improve the counting performance. The experimental results show that MTSC-Net outperforms other semi-supervised counting models with labeled percentages ranging from 5% to 50%. When the labeled percentage is 5%, the mean absolute error and root mean square error are 17.71 and 25.49, respectively. These findings demonstrate that our work can be used as an efficient semi-supervised counting method to provide automated support for tree breeding and genetic utilization.

Background: Fertilizer application combined with successive foliage cuttings can positively affect plant growth, yield and quality. The objective of this study was to evaluate the response of chipilín to successive foliage cuttings and nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer application under greenhouse conditions. Methods: During 2018, an experiment was carried out in a greenhouse under a completely randomized design, with six replications of each treatment. The treatments were as follows: control, 100 kg ha-1 N as urea and 60 kg ha-1 P2O5 as triple superphosphate. The fertilizers were applied one month after planting (MAP). Two MAPs, uniform cuttings were performed, followed by three successive cuttings, with one every 30 days. At each cutting, the traits evaluated included the number of new shoots; the length, diameter, leaf area and dry biomass of the new shoots by component (leaves and stems); the relative growth rate (RGR) of the biomass of the shoot leaves, the chlorophyll (a, b and total) and carotenoid content and NDVI. Result: Cutting foliage every 30 days increased (p less than 0.05) the number of new shoots, leaf biomass, total biomass and leaf area, but reduced the length and diameter of the shoots. There was no effect (p greater than 0.05) of cutting on root biomass or nodulation, but there was an effect of fertilizer application, with both variables decreasing with nitrogen addition.

中, 低級茶の価格が低迷しているため, 上級茶の原材料である一番茶の良質・多収化が益々重要になっている.そこで, 一番茶を多収にする前年二番茶の収穫方法を明らかにするため, 二番茶収穫の時期と摘採位置が翌年一番茶に及ぼす影響を三番茶不摘採園において調査した.その結果, 二番茶を早期に収穫すると, 翌年一番茶は新芽数が減少し, 減収した.また二番茶の摘採位置が高いと.翌年一番茶は新芽数が少なく, 生育が遅れて減収した.収穫時期および摘採位置の交互作用については, 早期に摘採位置を上げて二番茶を収穫すると秋に徒長枝と着蕾数が増加したが, 翌年一番茶への影響は認められなかった.三番茶不摘採園では, 新芽数が少ないことが一番茶の減収要因になりやすいので, 二番茶を晩期に摘採位置を低く収穫した方が翌年一番茶の増収をもたらすと結論された.

In Central India, an experiment was carried out on a 22 year old Dalbergia sissoo based agrisilviculture model in 2020-21 to investigate the response of different pruning intensities on Rabi seasonal diameter growth, timber production, CAI of total biomass, and carbon sequestration potential. Each year, paddy followed by wheat is grown under trees spaced at 5m × 5m continuously being treated with four different pruning intensities, i.e., 0% (P0: No pruning), 25% (P25: Light pruning), 50% (P50: Moderate pruning) and 75% (P75: Heavy pruning) of the total tree height. It was reported that different rates of pruning had a significant effect. Maximum Rabi seasonal D.B.H. increment was recorded in P0 (0.68 cm) and minimum in P75 (0.49 cm). Maximum seasonal yield of large-sized timber, small-sized timber, and fuelwood (5.80 m3 ha-1, 0.62 m3 ha-1 and 7.48 q ha-1, respectively) were recorded under light pruning treatment (P25). However, the minimum seasonal yield of large-sized timber and fuelwood (5.80 m3 ha-1 and 5.14 q ha-1, respectively) were under heavy pruning (P75) and the minimum seasonal yield of small-sized timber (0.32 m3 ha-1) under moderate pruning (P50). Maximum annual above-ground biomass, annual below-ground biomass and current annual increment of total biomass (171.63 q ha-1 yr-1, 34.33 q ha-1 yr-1, and 205.95 t ha-1 respectively) were recorded under light pruning treatment (P25), while minimum (84.50 q ha-1 yr-1, 16.90 q ha-1 yr-1 and 101.40 t ha-1 respectively) under heavy pruning (P75). Carbon sequestration potential was reported to be higher with light pruning (92.68 q ha-1 yr-1), followed by moderate pruning (63.69 q ha-1 yr-1), while minimum under heavy pruning (45.63 q ha-1 yr-1) and no pruning (46.91 q ha-1 yr-1) at all. It was concluded that light pruning of 25% was best among the four treatments in terms of timber and biomass yield.

An experiment was carried out at instructional cum research farm, Department of Horticulture, BNCA, AAU, Biswanath Chariali during 2018-2019 to standardize the propagation method of custard apple (Annona reticulata) by air layering. The experiment was laid out in a completely randomized design with four treatments of air layering viz., Pre-conditioned with 30 days of girdling (T1), Pre-conditioned with 30 days of etiolation (T2), Pre-conditioned with 30 days of girdling +etiolation (T3) and Control i.e. Air layering without pre-conditioning (T4) with three replications and all these treatments were applied at monthly interval from March to August, 2018. Among the treatments, T2 recorded highest percentage of success of layering (62.37%), required minimum days for separation of layers from mother plant (53.02 days), maximum numbers of primary roots per layer (4.76), numbers of secondary roots per layer (12.49), longest primary root after detachment from mother plant (6.71 cm), percentage of survivability (89.05%), number of new shoots per layer at 30 days after planting (2.21), number of new shoots per layer at 60 days after planting (2.78) and number of new shoots per layer at 90 days after planting (3.09). On an average, air layering done in August (S6) produced highest percentage of success (61.44%), minimum days for separation of layers from mother plant (51.40), numbers of primary roots per layer (5.35), numbers of new shoots per layer at 30 days (2.27), 60 days (2.75) and at 90 days (3.12) after planting in poly bags. Among the treatment combinations, T2S6 (layering done in the month of August pre-conditioned with etiolation) recorded significantly highest percentage of success of layering (71.55%), required shortest days for separation of layers from mother plant (48.10 days), number of new shoots per layer at 30 days (2.67) and 90 days (3.75) after planting in polybags.

Moringa oleifera Lam. is becoming increasingly popular as an industrial crop due to its multitude of useful attributes as a water purifier, nutritional supplement and biofuel feedstock. Horticultural practices such as pruning that encourage improved production of M. oleifera in terms of flowers and fruits have been given little attention especially in sub-Sahara Africa. This study therefore aimed to establish an ideal pruning intensity level on ±5 year old M. oleifera trees. A trial was conducted at the University of Pretoria Experimental Farm of the Hillcrest Campus on trees of an established orchard with four treatments namely severe (1 m), moderate (2 m), light (3 m) pruning above the ground level (pollarding), and no pruning (control). These were applied once in September for two consecutive years. Individual inflorescences from each treatment were tagged during floral initiation and monitored throughout until fruiting stage. Records for Leaf Area Index (LAI), fresh and dry biomass, chlorophyll content, as well as tree stem circumference were taken over a period time at around 81, 98 and 124 days after pruning (DAP). Results showed that light pruning (3 m from the ground) resulted in the highest quantity of flower buds at 124 DAP, and of flowers at 98 DAP in both years. In addition, moderate pruning (2 m from the ground) increased flower number on trees at 124 DAP. Highest quantity of fruits were recorded from the moderate pruning treatment. Measurements done on total leaf area, fresh and dry biomass showed that although plants pruned at 1 m above the ground (severe pruning) received better initial penetration of light into the plant canopy, not enough plant vigor could out-perform plants pruned at 2 m above the ground level. Moderately pruned trees also recorded a substantial increase in stem circumference in comparison to the control and lightly pruned trees at 124 DAP in the first year. Moderate pruning promoted significantly higher total chlorophyll accumulations in mature leaves. Although the onset of low temperatures in both years may have led to increased flower abortion resulting in lower fruit numbers across treatments, results suggest that pruning a M. oleifera tree at 3 m (light) and 2 m (moderate) above ground level under sub-optimal growing conditions in Gauteng, South Africa once a year, will result in maximum flower and fruit harvest. The moderately, but also the severely pruned trees produced more than double the amount of fresh biomass in comparison to the control and lightly pruned trees. This study therefore concludes that M. oleifera crop production for the sole purpose of fruit production may not be optimal in Pretoria, Gauteng, however, leaf production is promising due to the higher plant biomass recorded with the moderate pruning treatment.

(1) The dynamics of vegetative reproduction in the giant bamboo, Phyllostachys pubescens, at the Nature Reserve of Jinyun Mountain, Chongqing, Subtropical China, are described for a period of 20 years. (2) Production of new bamboo shoots fluctuated significantly among years. In 'good' years, the number and size of new shoots emerging and surviving in the bamboo groves significantly exceeded those in 'poor' years. Moreover, good and poor years often alternated, forming a regular biennial cycle. (3) The biennial cycle resulted from the year-to-year variation in the number of adult shoots carrying new leaves. This is based on the fact that the leaf life span of the bamboo is two years, and all leaves on a shoot have been formed simultaneously. Mean number of new shoots emerging and surviving per plot was positively correlated with the proportion of adult shoots carrying new (one year old) leaves. The annual production of new shoots of Phyllostachys pubescens was not significantly correlated with the annual values of logging intensity of bamboo poles, rainfall or temperature. The survival rate of new shoots was constant over years. (4) Severe pests (e.g., plague of locusts), extreme drought or heavy overlogging of adult shoots with new leaves can be triggers of poor production of new shoots during the following spring.

BAP (N 6-benzylaminopurine) was sprayed 5, 10 and 15 times at four different periods to promote flowering of a grafted Japanese red pine (Pinus densiflora) clone. Four stages were I, August 4 to September 1; II, September 6 to October 4; III, October 5 to November 14 and IV, November 30 to December 28, in 1994. Concentration of BAP was 250 mg/l. In May, 1995, no apical female strobili were observed at the top of the new shoots in any treatment. However, BAP application at stage III (floral differentiation period) produced lateral female and bisexual strobili at the lower part of new shoots. The numbers of lateral female and bisexual strobili were 87 out of 147 to 234 out of 162 new shoots. Frequency of BAP application did not affect the numbers. Marked decrease in number of male strobili induced by BAP application at stages I and II was observed. In contrast, the number of new shoots was increased by the BAP application at the above stages. Treatment at stage III and IV did not affect significantly the number of male strobili and new shoots. These results indicate that BAP application at stage III specifically induces the development of lateral female and bisexual strobili in Japanese red pine.

This study aims to determine the effect of atonic concentration, pruning, and the interaction between atonic concentration and pruning on the growth and yield of arabica coffee plants. This research was conducted at UPP. Catur Paramitha, Catur Village, Kintamani District, Bangli Regency with an altitude of 1250 m above sea level. The experiment lasted for 3 months from September to November 2021. The design used in this study was a Randomized Block Design (RAK) with 2 factors arranged in a factorial manner. The first factor is atonic concentration with 4 levels, namely Ao: 0 ml/l, A1: 1 ml/l, 2ml/l, and 3ml/l while the second factor is pruning which consists of 2 levels, namely, without pruning and with pruning. Observations on the observed variables were carried out every 2 weeks. The variables observed were branch length (cm), number of leaves (strands), number of new shoots (fruit), number of flowers (buds), number of fruit (fruit), and number of the stump (bunch). The results of statistical analysis showed that giving atonic concentrations to coffee plants had a significant to a very significant effect on the variables of number of leaves, number, number of new shoots, number of flowers, and number of fruits, and no significant effect on branch length and number of buds. The pruning treatment showed a very significant effect on all observed variables except for the variable length of branches and the number of buds which showed no significant effect. The interaction between the treatment of the effect of atonic concentration and pruning had a significant effect on the number of leaves, a very significant effect on the number of flowers and fruit, and an insignificant effect on the variable length of branches.

Information is limited on the effects of commercial plant growth regulators (PGRs) on dragon fruit. Most studies on rooting effects on dragon fruit cuttings employed very high doses of plant growth regulators (PGRs), which are not deemed practical for greenhouse and field applications. This study was initiated to evaluate the responses of four genotypes of dragon fruit (‘Royal Red’, ‘Moroccan Red’, ‘Mexican White’, and ‘Hawaiian White’) during greenhouse acclimatization to diluted concentrations of commercial PGRs that are readily available in the market. A single factorial experiment on genotype effects on root and shoot responses, without PGR, was conducted. A second experiment with a 4x3x2 completely randomized design, with four genotypes, three diluted commercial PGR formulations and two exposure times as factors was also done. Root length, number of roots, number of days to first shoot emergence and number of new shoots were measured after 50 days of acclimatization in the greenhouse. In the single factorial experiment, only ‘genotype’ had an effect on number of new shoots (P<0.05). In the multifactorial experiment, all factors tested did not have significant interaction effects. However, the main effect of ‘genotype’ on number of new shoots and number of days to first shoot emergence was also significant (P<0.05). The lack of significant effect of other factors and their interactions on most growth responses suggest that it is difficult to resolve differences among the four genotypes using highly diluted commercial PGR formulations after a 50-day observation period. However, our data still suggest that the ‘Red’ genotypes are more superior than the ‘White’ genotypes in terms of shoot growth.