Abstract
AbstractLittle information is available on vegetative and generative performance of apple cultivars during the early growth of trees in orchards. The aim of this five-year study was to evaluate 2 vegetative (trunk cross sectional area (TCSA) and tree height (TH)) and 7 generative parameters (tree yield (TY), fruit number per tree (FNT), crop load (CL), fruit diameter (FD), shape index (SI), fruit surface color (FSC) and fruit color intensity (FCI)) and their inter-correlations (Pearson correlation, regression analyses and PCA) for young apple trees, on 9 apple cultivars (‘Jugala’, ‘Galaval’, ‘Gala Venus Fengal’, ‘Gala Decarli-Fendeca’, ‘Gala Schnitzer (S) Schniga’, ‘Fuji September Wonder’, ‘Crimson Crisp (Co-op 39)’, ‘Jeromine’, and ‘Red Idared’) in a slender spindle training system (2597 trees ha−1) and on 4 apple cultivars (‘Wilton’s Red Jonaprince’, ‘Red Cap Valtod (S)’, ‘Early Red One’, and ‘Red Topaz’) in a super spindle training system (5194 trees ha−1) in Eastern Hungary. The strongest vegetative growth was observed in ‘Red Idared’, while the weakest was in ‘Early Red One’. Most ‘Gala’ mutants showed high yields in all years, except for ‘Galaval’. On the 6 year-old trees, the lowest tree yield was found in ‘Fuji September Wonder’ (8.2 kg tree−1), while the highest was found in ‘Gala Venus Fengal’ (35.8 kg tree−1). The lowest fruit number per tree (15 fruit tree−1) was found in ‘Jeromine’, while the highest (222 fruit tree−1) was in ‘Gala Venus Fengal’. The highest crop load was found in ‘Gala Venus Fengal’ (12.72 fruit per cm2TCSA), while the lowest was in ‘Jeromine’ (2.13 fruit per cm2TCSA). The smallest fruit diameter (66.3 mm) was recorded in ‘Gala Schnitzer (S) Schniga’, while highest (93.6 mm) was in ‘Red Idared’. The lowest shape index (0.73) was found in ‘Red Topaz’, while the highest (0.92) was in ‘Red Idared’. The majority of the cultivars reached very good fruit surface color (80–100%). The lowest fruit surface color (40%) was observed in ‘Gala Schnitzer (S) Schniga’, while the highest (100%) was in ‘Jeromine’ and ‘Early Red One’. The highest fruit color intensity was observed in most cultivars with the exception of ‘Jeromine’, ‘Gala Schnitzer (S) Schniga’ and’Fuji September Wonder’. In addition, correlation and regression analyses revealed strong and significant (p = 0.05) relationships between THvsTCSA, TYvsTCSA, THvsTY, TYvsFNT, and FCIvsFSC. PCA explained 87% of the total variance and PC1, PC2, PC3, and PC4 accounted for 33, 21, 20, and 13% of the variance, respectively, and correlated with TSCA, TH, TY and FNT; with FNT, CL and FS; with FSC and FCI; and with TH and SI, respectively. In conclusion, our study provides useful tree property data on prospective mutants/cultivars for growers/advisors in order to select the most suitable cultivars for establishing new orchards under climate conditions similar to central Europe.
Highlights
Apple is one of the major fruit crops in the temperate zone, and its world production is around 87 million tons y ear−1 grown in around 4.7 million ha (FAOSTAT 2019)
Data were subjected to analyses of variance (ANOVA) in order to determine the effect of cultivars and years; and their interactions were assessed on the nine parameters, separately for slender spindle and super spindle training systems
Relationships among all vegetative and generative parameters were analysed by Pearson correlation coefficients (r) and their associated significance levels (p = 0.05) were separately determined for slender spindle and super spindle training systems
Summary
Apple is one of the major fruit crops in the temperate zone, and its world production is around 87 million tons y ear−1 grown in around 4.7 million ha (FAOSTAT 2019). The profitability of apple production is highly dependent on the cultivar genotype. Market acceptance of a cultivar is highly influenced by the fruit skin color. Breeding programs all over the world were aimed to improve the fruit skin color of the bicolor cultivars Guerra and Sansavini 2012). Some mutants have already reached 100% fruit surface color, such as for ‘Gala’ sport; the total coloration combined with larger fruit diameter and earlier ripening time become the priorities in breeding (Guerra and Sansavini 2012)
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