Improving Productivity and Fruit Quality of Florida Prince Peach Trees by Using Some Agriculture Treatments

Document Type : Original Article

Abstract

This investigation was carried out during 2009 and 2010 seasons on eight years old peach trees grown in a commercial orchard located at Sedy Salem District, Kafr El-Sheikh governorate. The effects of thinning out and heading back pruning, fruit thinning and their interaction on improving yield and fruit quality of Florida Prince peach cultivar specially fruit size and colour were studied. Thinning out and heading back pruning treatments and hand fruit thinning levels revealed significant variation in yield and fruit quality of Florida Prince peach trees. Therefore, the interaction (TO x HB x FT) which was significant in most cases exhibited the most important data in the present work. Thus, thinning out 50% of the number of one year old shoot and heading back 25% from the length of one year old shoot with fruit thinning at 15 cm apart, considered the best combination treatment. This treatment produced maximum yield as kg/tree, the highest number and percentage of large sized fruit with high quality specially fruit weight, size, colour and its content of TSS, vitamin C and anthocyanin.

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