A REVIEW ON SUSTAINABLE NEW FRUIT THINNING STRATEGIES IN APPLE GROWING

A REVIEW ON SUSTAINABLE NEW FRUIT THINNING STRATEGIES IN APPLE GROWING

YILDIRIM, Fatma Akinci
N.YILDIRIM, Adnan
SAN, Bekir
KACAL, Emel

Keywords: Thinning, fruit quality, Malus x domestica, organic growing. ABSTRACT Most modern high-density orchard systems, including apples, have the goals of attaining sustainable, high yields with marketable fruit quality. Fruit quality is determined by size, skin colour and shape, as well as by other features such as internal quality (eg. sugar contents) and eating quality (e.g. crispness, juiciness). Fruit thinning is one of the most important cultural practices for the improvement of fruit quality. Fruits are thinned by hand, mechanically and chemically methods. Although hand thinning is the most reliability thinning method, it is much more expensive than any type of chemical fruit thinning. To reduce the labor costs, around the world, growers have been using chemical-synthetic thinning agents or plant hormones, such as dinitro compounds, NAA (Naphthalene Acetic Acid), NAAm (Naphthalene Acid Amid), carbaryl, etephon and GA3 (Gibberelic Acid). Whereas, using of these chemicals is not allowed in certified organic apple growing. So, alternative thinning strategies are need for use in organic apple orchards. For this purpose, many researchers tested different potential thinning compounds such as plant oils, ATS (Ammonium thiosulphate), lime sulphur, starch, sodium bicarbonate, sodium salt, soap and kaolin, which are considered safe for the environment and human health.

Article
PeerReviewed

ISSN 2233-1565

International Burch University

2013-05-24

2096