INVESTIGATION OF MAIN FACTORS ON BEARING AND BLOSSOMS HARDINESS OF APRICOT CULTIVARS

J. Dejampour, H. Rahnemoun, M. Zarrinbal
Most apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) cultivars are early blooming, therefore in most years the flowers are damaged by early and late spring frosts. Generally to avoid this hazard, growers try to change the garden microclimate and use late blooming cultivars. Local apricot genotypes of Iran are early blooming, thus usually fruit set and productivity vary year-to-year. In order to study the main factors relative to frost resistance of flowers and low crop load of different apricot cultivars, this study was carried out at Sahand Horticultural Research Station (East Azerbaijan province, Iran) on 150 local and foreign apricot cultivars during 2002-2010. Results showed that flowers of some apricot cultivars were resistant to spring frost and their crop load is optimum, despite the fact that they had the same blooming time as other cultivars. These differences were related to some biological and physiological characteristics of flower buds like; interior components of flower buds, EPP (Effective pollination period), self-compatibility, frost resistance of pistils and pistil morphology. In this paper the role of each factor on bearing and cold resistance is discussed and some apricot cultivars resistant to spring frost are introduced.
Dejampour, J., Rahnemoun, H. and Zarrinbal, M. (2012). INVESTIGATION OF MAIN FACTORS ON BEARING AND BLOSSOMS HARDINESS OF APRICOT CULTIVARS. Acta Hortic. 966, 51-55
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.966.6
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.966.6
frost resistance, crop load, flowering biology, Prunus armeniaca
English

Acta Horticulturae