Abstract
Spring frost often reduces the yield because of damaged flowers. Spring frost is a dangerous climatic hazard that can be responsible for yield loses to orchard trees. Frost damage is highly dependent on the stage of development of the flower buds. Flowers buds samples were collected from ‘Granny Smith’, ‘Golden Delicious Rainders’ and ‘Gala Schniga’ apple cultivars at different flower buds stages from BBCH 59 (most flowers with petals forming a hollow ball) to BBCH 65 (full bloom on trees), two days after frost that occurred on the morning at 5:00-7:00 of March 31, 2017 when the temperature dropped to -1.5 to -3.3°C in the apple orchard of company Pollino Agrar near Fruška gora mountain. Pistils in flower buds samples at a hollow ball stage to full bloom were examined individually and classified as dead or alive based on tissue browning. The highest damage on flowers was recorded to cultivar ‘Gala Schniga’ (75.4%) and the lowest to cultivar ‘Golden Delicious Rainders’. Cultivar ‘Gala Schniga’ had more than 90% of damaged king flowers. Our results showed that the spring frost damage of pistils was variable according to stages of flower bud development and genotypes.
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