canopy management in fruit crops - Department of Agriculture & Co ...

Peach
Peach fruit is mainly borne on one year old wood that has not grown too vigorous.
Lateral fruit buds are formed on current season's growth. After fruiting, this branch
becomes barren. No flower bud differentiation or
subsequent fruit formation takes place in this part of
the branch. Each branch, which has produced fruit
needs to be pruned, otherwise the tree will continue
adding barren wood year after year.
Training is usually practised to give the shape
or build a strong framework of the tree in order to
support maximum crop load of quality fruits. The
peach canopy develops according to the agroclimatic
condition. In Indian situation, where sunlighting is
not a limiting factor, modified training system is preferred. On the contrary, where it is a
limiting factor, vase or open centre is advocated over conventional vase and central leader
peach trees generally grow faster and carry most of their fruits ripen at the earliest.
•
Heavy fruit laden plants
•
In modified leader system (first year), trees are
cut back to a height of 80 - 100 cm.
• After emergence of new shoots below the cut
points, all the shoots are allowed to develop for 3
- 4 weeks and thereafter, 4 - 5 of them which are
well spread around the main trunk, are retained
while the rest are removed from their points of
origin. The uppermost lateral thus selected is
retained as the leader.
In open centre system (first year), the trees at planting time are headed back to a
height of 50 - 75 cm from the ground level.
Properly trained plants with
heavy flowering
Canopy Management in Fruit Crops 63