A comparison of cropping levels in the Sultana

Authors

  • A. J. Antcliff Horticultural Research Section, C. S. I. R. 0., Merbein, Victoria

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5073/vitis.1965.5.1-9

Abstract

When sultana vines were pruned to from three to eight 14-bud canes each year for 14 years there was in every sea·son a linear relation between number of canes retained and weight of fresh fruit harvested. The i!'lcrease in weight per cane retained was positively correlated with the overall mean yield for the season but there were departures from this relation suggestive of a slight biennial bearing effect. No evidence was found of any cumulative effect of the ,differential pruning. The yield from three-cane vines over the whole period was nearly two-thirds that from eight-cane vines.
Smaller experiments on three sites comparing pruning to 6, 8, 10 and 12 canes per vine showed that a linear relation between number of canes and weight of fresh fruit also held over this range for the four seasons studied, with no interaction between pruning treatment and site. The yield from six-cane vines was more  than three-quarters that from twelve-cane vines. The percentage of buds which burst and the percentage of these which were fruitful appwre, d to be affected by the pruning level ,directly and not through its effects on crop.
In both cases there were significant differences in yield between individual vines within the pruning treatments over the period of the trials and these appeared to be at least partly due to internal factors in the vines.
No evidence of overcropping was found up to a yield of 143(, tons per acre, the highest for any of the treatments tested.

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Published

2017-02-22

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