Planting systems of sweet cherries in Belgium

Abstract

The choice of a planting distance or planting system depends on soil type, cultivar or rootstock. Moreover, the experience of the grower is an important factor. If one has little experience with the training and pruning of sweet cherries, it may be appropriate to plant wider. With intensive plantings it is necessary to prune consistently to avoid problems with growth. In 2003, we started a trial with 4 planting systems with ‘Sweetheart’ on Gisela 5. Until now the classical system and the English system do well. The Spanish bush, on the other hand, had very low productions in the first years. In the V-system the total production ha-1 is obviously lower than in the other 3 systems, due to some disappointing productions during the last years. In a second trial ‘Kordia’ and ‘Sweetheart’ on Gisela 5 were planted in a V-system in spring 2005. A V-system is a very expensive and labour intensive system. For the planting of a V-system, a self-fertile cultivar like ‘Sweetheart’ has to be preferred as it gets in this trial clearly better yields than ‘Kordia’. On ‘Kordia’ the vigour was quite strong, even when the trees were repeatedly root pruned. A cultivar like ‘Kordia’ yields insufficiently on the leader branches. This kept the production too low each year. In spring 2009 ‘Skeena’ on Gisela 6 was planted as a classical system and according to the “UFO”-method. “UFO” stands for upright fruiting offshoot. The whips were planted under an angle of 45°. From the central leader shoots were tied to grow upright. This results in a narrow system. Up to now the “UFO”-method is very labour intensive, especially the tying and removing of the branches take time. After 7 production years the yield of the “UFO”-system is 32% lower compared to the standard training system. The fruit size is also slightly smaller for the UFO-system.