Pruning and Population Adjustment in Relation to Fruit Trees Productivity (PDF)

Project Report from the year 2002 in the subject Agrarian Studies, National Research Center - Agricultral and Biological Research Devision (-), language: English, abstract: High planting density is considered one of the modern management systems in new fruit orchards. Pruning and population adjustment are some of the main way to approach high productivity and good fruit quality under the modern management systems.
Pruning is defined as the management of plant structure and fruiting wood and it is considered one of the main factors affecting fruit trees production. There are many objectives for pruning i.e. controlling the direction of growth, developing a strong framework, controlling the amount of growth, improved productiveness, improving quality product, utilizing space efficiently and increasing the usefulness of plant. There are three main systems of fruit trees training (i) Central leader system, (ii) Modified leader system, (iii) Open center or vase system. Also there are several kinds of pruning i.e. heading back and thinning out, fine and coarse pruning and root pruning. However, it is important to select the suitable training system and kind of pruning according to the target of the pruning to reach optimum vegetative growth and maximum yield with high fruit quality.
On the other hand, population adjustment (plant distribution or planting density) is very important factor affecting fruit trees production. We can reach the optimum usefulness of the planted area by using best population adjustment of trees in the plantation. Trees can be planted using different systems:- triangle, rectangle, square system.....etc. On the other side, presence of pollinator trees through the orchard is very important for many fruit trees. Pollinator can be planted either in (1) Complete along rows, as one row of pollinator per two or four rows of the main cultivar. (2) The second tree in the second row. (3) The third tree in the third row. (4) Across rows through the orchard. On the other hand, good plant distribution is very helpful for mechanical serves in the plantation,
We can say that the key objective in planning a new orchard should be to maximize yield in the early years and still effectively produce larger yield of high quality fruits in the next years. This may be happened by utilizing space efficiently and increasing the usefulness of plant using the suitable training system, kind of pruning, also good population adjustment of the trees in the orchard beside the importance of the other factors affecting production process.