Temperate Fruits Research Center, Horticultural Science Research Institute, Agricultural Research Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
Stone fruit trees, especially the peaches and nectarine short life is a major problem in the fruit growing industry. Nematodes, fungi, cold damage, bacterial canker, cultivar and kind of rootstock are the main causes for this. In this study peach cultivar ‘G H hill’ was budded on Missouri seedling and GF677 rootstocks and planted on a solarized and none solarized (control block) block. Vegetative traits and indices related to short life such as dried branches, trunk and branch gummosis and shoot yellowing rates were evaluated. The study was carried out as Randomize Complete Block Design with four replicates during 2017 and 2018. Variance analyses showed the significant difference for the effects of rootstock on dried branch, branch and trunk gummosis and number of sucker at p≤ 1%, and tree mortality percent and trunk section area at p≤0.5% level. Solarization was significantly effective on growth-related traits at the 5% level. The highest percentage of tree mortality was observed in seed rootstocks (34.37%) which was significantly different from GF677 rootstock (12.5%). The percentage of deterioration in non-solarized treatment (31.25%) was significantly higher than solarized treatment (15.62%). In general, it can be said that the use of rootstocks tolerant to pathogens such as GF677, will have a significant impact on increasing the economic life of peach and nectarine orchards. Due to the positive and significant effects of soil disinfection on the health and growth indices of peach trees, it is necessary to use this technique in the cultivation of peach trees and to carry out appropriate management operations to prevent this problem and if it occurs to take care to prevent the development of damage due to the short life of trees.
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