FINANCIAL RESULT OF DIFFERENT PLANTING SYSTEMS FOR ‘CONFERENCE’ PEARS

Belgian fruit growers are changing from apple to pear to make fruit farming profitable and must choose the planting system with the quickest return on investment. Without CCC, the hedge of Tienen and the long pruning system qualified best. Quince Adams must be the rootstock choice for both systems. Quince C is not vigorous enough, especially for the long pruning, while Quince A is too vigorous. With long pruning, the risk of small fruit and damage by wind (chafing) must be considered. If a fruit farm has the necessary financial capacity, the V-hedge and the common bush-spindle also have a future provided that Quince C or Quince Adams are used and frost damage is controlled. Pruning and bending must be done with care. With V-system, one should plant trees with four leader branches, removing strong side-branches. With the bush-spindle the distance between the rows should be at least 3,50 m wide and the leader branches should not be bent outwards too much. It should be noted when interpreting these results that the V-hedges, the trees with a small volume, and the bush-spindle trees were treated with CCC in the first years, which increased early production and reduced pruning time.