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Vegetative and reproductive traits of young
peaches and nectarines grown under red
photoselective net
Article · January 2016
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PRELIMINARY COMMUNICATION
Vegetative and Reproductive Traits of
Young Peaches and Nectarines Grown
under Red Photoselective Net
Marko VUKOVIĆ 1
Mia BRKLJAČA 2( )
Jasna RUMORA 2
Mladen FRUK 1
Mushtaque A. JATOI 1,3
Tomislav JEMRIĆ 1
Summary
he efect of red photoselective net on yield per tree (g), yield eiciency (g·cm-2) leaf
surface (cm2), fruit diameter (mm), fruit mass (g), fruit irmness (kg·cm-2) and soluble
solids concentration (SSC) (%Brix) on young peach (‘Sugar Time’) and nectarine
(‘Big Bang’) trees was studied. No signiicant diferences were recorded for yield,
yield eiciency and SSC on peach as well for all fruit quality parameters on nectarine.
Both peach and nectarine trees grown under red net had signiicantly higher leaf
surface (37.82 and 40.72 cm2, respectively) than in control (23.85 and 26.14 cm2 ,
respectively). Peach fruits grown under red net had signiicantly higher fruit diameter
(70.97 mm), fruit mass (163.73 g) and lower fruit irmness (2.12 kg·cm-2) than in
control (65.24 mm, 135.84 g, and 3.04 kg·cm-2 , respectively). It was concluded that red
photoselective net has a positive efect on vegetative growth of peach and nectarine,
and on majority of fruit quality parameters of peach, while on nectarine fruit quality
there are no evident diferences. Further research must be continued to verify these
preliminary indings.
Key words
nectarine, peach, photoselective net, fruit quality
1 University
of Zagreb, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Pomology,
Svetošimunska cesta 25, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
2 University of Zadar, Department of Ecology, Agronomy and Aquaculture,
Trg Kneza Višeslava 9, 23000 Zadar, Croatia
e-mail: mbrkljaca@unizd.hr
3 Shah Abdul Latif University, Date Palm Research Institute, 66020, Khairpur, Pakistan
Received: March 12, 2017 | Accepted: March 21, 2017
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was carried out with a contribution of the LIFE financial instrument of the
European Union for the project “Low pesticide IPM in sustainable and safe fruit production”
(Contract No. LIFE13 ENV/HR/000580).
Agriculturae Conspectus Scientiicus . Vol. 81 (2016) No. 3 (181-185)
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Marko VUKOVIĆ, Mia BRKLJAČA, Jasna RUMORA, Mladen FRUK, Mushtaque A. JATOI, Tomislav JEMRIĆ
Introduction
he use of nets in fruit production to cover fruit trees is of
prime importance nowadays. he industrial production of nets
used in agriculture has been constantly increased in Europe.
Just for example, in Italy, the annual production of HDPE nets
for agriculture application is more than 5300 t (Castellano et
al., 2008). he traditional usage of nets in agricultural practices was mainly for protection against hail and wind (Middleton
and McWaters, 2002). According to Briassoulis et al. (2007), the
oldest usage of nets in protected cultivation was in vineyards,
peach, apricot, apple and cherry orchards as well as in production of cut lowers.
Besides its traditional usage for protection against hail and
wind, nets are nowadays particularly used for protection against
rain, insects, birds and excessive solar radiation (Briassoulis et
al., 2007). he usage of photoselective nets for protection against
pests has been explored in recent years (Sauphanor et al., 2012).
For protection against pests, the whole orchard is closed with
nets that present mechanical barrier. Even if the both sides of
orchards are let open, there is signiicant reduction of population of codling moth (Cydia pomonella (Linnaeus, 1758) in apple
orchards (Graf et al., 1999).
Peach (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch.) and nectarine (Prunus
persica (L.) Batsch. var. nucipersica (Suckow) C.K. Schneid) are
very popular fruits. In many production areas of peach and nectarine hail presents one of main threats in production. herefore,
many producers protect their orchard by nets. If orchard is protected against hail, it can also be protected against pests with
little more efort.
Quality of any fruit is mainly related to their biochemical
composition and hence it is of special importance for consumer satisfaction e.g. as in case of peaches (Crisosto et al., 2003;
Crisosto and Crisosto, 2005). According to Basile et al. (2012),
photoselective nets are made up of materials that afects light
specter that passes through them and causes light scattering.
Iglesias and Alegre (2006) and Solomakhin and Blanke (2008)
have reported that the photoselective nets can have quantitative
and qualitative efect on light that reaches to the fruit trees. Few
studies have proved that quantitative and qualitative modiication of light can afect physiology, yield and vegetative growth of
many fruit species (Erez and Kadman-Zahavi, 1972; Rapparini
et al., 1999; Jifon and Syversten, 2003) which are directly or indirectly related to the quality of fruits. heir possible efect in
increasing yield and fruit quality in young orchards is of special importance due to faster economic return of investment in
orchard plantation.
However, there is scarcity of studies available regarding the
efect of such photoselective nets on fruit quality as well on vegetative growth of peaches and nectarines. For example, Schettini
(2011) investigated efect of ive coloured nets on one-year-old
bare root peach ‘Messapia’ trees grown in plastic pots. Similarly,
Giaccone et al. (2012) studied the efect of red and white photoselective net on mature ‘Laura’ nectarine trees. In addition,
Shahak et al. (2004) investigated the efect of ive diferent coloured nets on 7-year-old ‘Hermosa’ peach trees.
he main goal of this study was to investigate efect of red
photoselective net used for hail and pest protection on fruit
quality and vegetative growth of young peach and nectarine
trees. In this study red net was used because, in comparison with
other nets, it showed mainly positive efects on apple (‘Cripps
Pink’) yield and fruit quality in same environmental conditions
(Brkljača et al., 2016).
Materials and methods
Plant material
he trial was established in private orchard near Donji Kašić
(44°09ƍ04ƎN 15°28ƍ23ƎE) in season 2016 on the 3 years old fruit
trees of peach (‘Sugar Time’) and nectarine (‘Big Bang’) grated
on rootstock GF 677. Peach and nectarine trees were trained as
spindle bush with a spacing of 0.8 m in row and 3 m between
rows. Covering the trees with red photoselective net (AGRITECH
S.r.l., Eboly, Italy) with mesh size of 2.4 × 4.8 mm was used as
a treatment and uncovered trees served as control. Peaches and
nectarines were harvested on 16 June 2016.
Morphological and chemical analysis or
measurements
Yield was measured on site in orchard, while the samples
were collected for determining the fruit quality parameters at
the lab of University of Zadar, Croatia.
Leaf surface (cm2) was measured on 10 randomly selected
leaves from middle part of one-year old shoots before leaf fall
using planimeter. Trunk cross sectional area (TCSA) was calculated from trunk diameter measured with digital caliper at the
end of vegetation on the height of 25 cm from soil surface. Yield
was measured on ive trees per each treatment. TCSA measurements were taken from the same trees on which yield was measured. Yield eiciency was calculated from yield and TCSA and
expressed as g·cm-2.
Fruit quality parameters that were measured were: fruit diameter, fruit mass, fruit irmness and total soluble solids concentration (SSC). Fruit diameter, fruit mass, fruit irmness and SSC
were measured on 15 fruit samples per each treatment. Fruit diameter was measured with digital caliper, fruit mass on analytical balance (OHAUS Adventurer AX2202, Ohaus Corporation
Parsippani, NJ, USA) with accuracy of 0.01 g. SSC was measured
using ATAGO 3810 PAL-1 digital refractometer (ATAGO, Tokyo,
Japan) and expressed as %Brix. Firmness was measured using
PCE - PTR-200 (PCE Instruments, Jupiter/Palm Beach, USA)
itted with 7.9 mm diameter plunger and expressed in kg·cm-2.
Statistical analysis
Data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and
the signiicance of diferences between treatment and control
were obtained with Student’s t-test using SAS statistical sotware ver. 9.4 (SAS Institute, NC).
Results and discussion
he ANOVA revealed that the fruit type (T) was signiicant
for yield, yield eiciency, fruit diameter, fruit mass, fruit irmness
and SSC. Netting (N) was signiicant for leaf surface, fruit diameter and fruit mass. T × N interaction was signiicant for yield
and fruit irmness only (Table 1). TCSA was not signiicant and
hence data is not shown here. Despite the low number of traits
signiicantly afected by T × N interaction, to better elucidate the
Agric. conspec. sci. Vol. 81 (2016) No. 3
Vegetative and Reproductive Traits of Young Peaches and Nectarines Grown under Red Photoselective Net
Table 1. ANOVA table for vegetative and reproductive traits of young peach ‘Sugar Top’ and nectarine ‘Big Bang’ grown under
red photoselective net
Source of
variability
Leaf surface
(cm2)
Yield
(g)
n.s.
***
n.s.
***
n.s.
*
Peach
Nectarine
29.76±9.08
35.75±9.73
937.13±379.50
2146.27±624.55
Control
Red net
24.99±5.25
39.92±7.33
1571.29±1063.02
1517.04±539.01
Fruit type (T)
Netting (N)
T×N
Yield efficiency
(g·cm-2)
Fruit diameter
(mm)
***
***
n.s.
*
n.s.
n.s.
Fruit type (mean±SD)
27.97±15.07
68.11±6.94
57.61±11.03
58.65±4.52
Netting (mean±SD)
40.88±22.18
61.69±6.21
44.37±18.65
65.07±8.39
Fruit mass
(g)
Firmness
(kg· cm-2)
SSC
(% Brix)
***
*
n.s.
***
n. s.
*
**
n.s.
n.s.
149.79±38.93
115.53±12.98
2.58±1.15
3.75±0.75
8.19±1.17
8.94±1.19
124.50±30.41
140.82±35.05
3.33±1.04
3.00±1.21
8.46±1.29
8.68±1.17
n.s., *, **, *** - not significant or significant at P ≤ 0.05, 0.01 and 0.001, respectively.
efects of red photoselective nets on peach and nectarine, further analysis was performed on each fruit tree species separately.
Both peach and nectarine trees had signiicantly higher leaf
surface under red net (37.82±5.41 and 40.72±7.87 cm2 , respectively) than in control (23.85±6.16 and 26.14±4.04 cm2 , respectively) (Figure 1). Giaccone et al. (2012) reported that mean leaf
size of nectarine trees was higher under the red net than under
white net. However, they did not compare their results with the
control trees (uncovered trees), and hence can be partly comparable with our indings. However, it still can be said that the
red photoselective net had positive efect on leaf surface, which
can further increase the photosynthetic capacity.
TCSA showed no signiicant diferences between red net and
control in both peach and nectarine (data not shown).
Peach trees under red net had higher yield (1130.00±340.00 g)
than in control (710.00±300.00 g) whereas nectarine trees in
control had higher yield (2440.00±760.00 g) than under red net
(1900.00±400.00 g), but no signiicant diferences were recorded.
According to Schettini (2011), peach trees under red net had signiicantly higher yield than trees in control, which is in agreement to our results. Giaccone et al. (2012) reported that fruit
yield of nectarine ‘Laura’ was not signiicantly afected by the
type of anti-hail net. However, due to the preliminary status of
this study, and possible efect of red net on bud diferentiation,
the true efect of red net on yield will be possible to evaluate next
year. Another important factor inluencing our results is high
yield variability (Table 1) caused by young fruit age. We expect
that when yield will be stabilized, red netting might positively
inluence the yield of peach and nectarine.
Peach trees under red net had higher yield eiciency (0.03±0.02
g·cm-2) than in control (0.02±0.01 g·cm-2) whereas nectarine fruits
under red net and in control had same value (0.06±0.01 g·cm–
2). For this parameter, no signiicant diferences were recorded.
Giaccone et al. (2012) reported that crop load of nectarine ‘Laura’
was not signiicantly afected by the type of anti-hail net which
is in agreement with our indings.
Peach fruit grown under red net had signiicantly higher fruit
diameter (70.97±6.15 mm) than in control (65.24±6.67 mm).
Nectarine fruit grown under red net had slightly higher fruit
diameter (59.16±5.77 mm) than in control (58.15±2.9 mm), but
no signiicant diferences were recorded (Figure 2).
Figure 1. Leaf surface (cm2) of young peach ‘Sugar Top’
and nectarine ‘Big Bang’ grown under red photoselective net.
(***- significant at P ≤ 0.001 level, according to Student’s t-test
within fruit species)
Figure 2. Fruit diameter (mm) of young peach ‘Sugar Top’
and nectarine ‘Big Bang’ grown under red photoselective net.
(n.s., * –nonsignificant or significant at P ≤ 0.05 level, according
to Student’s t-test within fruit species)
Agric. conspec. sci. Vol. 81 (2016) No. 3
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Marko VUKOVIĆ, Mia BRKLJAČA, Jasna RUMORA, Mladen FRUK, Mushtaque A. JATOI, Tomislav JEMRIĆ
Figure 3. Fruit mass (g) of young peach ‘Sugar Top’ and
nectarine ‘Big Bang’ grown under red photoselective net. (n.s.,
* –nonsignificant or significant at P ≤ 0.05 level, according to
Student’s t-test within fruit species)
Figure 4. Fruit firmness (kg·cm–2) of young ‘Sugar Top’ and
nectarine ‘Big Bang’ grown under red photoselective net. (n.s.,
* –nonsignificant or significant at P ≤ 0.05 level, according to
Student’s t-test within fruit species)
Peach fruit grown under red net had signiicantly higher fruit
mass (163.73±36.42 g) than in control (135.84±37.37 g). Nectarine
fruits under red net also had higher fruit mass (117.91±9.71 g)
than in control (113.16±15.59 g), but no signiicant diferences
were recorded (Figure 3). According to Shahak et al. (2004), fruits
of peach ‘Hermosa’ had higher fruit mass under red net (153.4
g) than in control (141.7 g), but no signiicant diferences were
recorded between them. Schettini (2011) reported that peach
‘Messapia’ trees grown under red net had higher fruit weight
(210 g) than in control (207 g), however no signiicant diferences
were recorded between them. Giaccone et al. (2012) reported that
fruit mass of nectarine ‘Laura’ was not signiicantly afected by
the type of anti-hail net (red and white). Possible explanation of
signiicant diference in peach fruit mass obtained in our study
might be the genetic diferences and/or climatic conditions that
in combination with red photoselective net and young tree age
caused changes on peach fruit. As, the results obtained in kiwifruit and reported by Basile et al. (2012) conirm our indings
with peaches. he authors found that the fruit mass of kiwifruit
‘Hayward’ grown under red net was signiicantly higher than
in control in irst year of study, although in second year no signiicant diferences were recorded. herefore, our results need
to be validated during few seasons and on multiple locations to
bring inal conclusions in this regard.
Peach fruit harvested from control trees had signiicantly
higher irmness (3.04±1.22 kg·cm-2) than those harvested from
trees grown under the red net (2.12±0.89 kg·cm-2) suggesting fruit
ripening acceleration in fruits grown under red net, contrary to
results reported by Schettini (2011) who found that peach fruit
grown under red net had signiicantly higher lesh irmness (4.56
kg·cm-2) than fruit harvested from control trees (3.2 kg·cm-2).
Similarly, Giaccone et al. (2012) reported that lesh irmness of
nectarine fruits was signiicantly lower under white net than
under red net, which is also contrary to our results. Our results
on nectarine show that, although fruits grown under the red net
had higher irmness (3.89±0.74 kg·cm-2) than those grown in control (3.62±0.75 kg·cm-2), no signiicant diference was recorded
(Figure 4). However, Basile et al. (2012) reported signiicantly
lower fruit irmness of kiwifruit ‘Hayward’ grown under red net
in comparison to control or uncovered trees, which is in agreement with our results obtained in peaches.
Peach fruits in control had higher SSC (8.23±1.48 %Brix)
than under red net (8.15±0.79 %Brix) while nectarine fruits
under red net had higher SSC (9.2±1.28 %Brix) than in control
(8.69±1.07 %Brix), but diferences were not signiicant. Giaccone
et al. (2012) reported that fruit SSC was signiicantly higher in
trees under the white net than under the red net which is contrary to our results. Similar results were reported by Basile et. al
(2012) who found that signiicantly higher fruit SSC of kiwifruit
‘Hayward’ under red net than in control. Possible diferences in
fruit reaction to red netting found in our study might be also explained by genetic and/or climatic diferences, as well by tree age.
Conclusion
he obtained results have shown that red nets have signiicant inluence on vegetative (leaf surface) and some fruit quality
parameters (fruit diameter, fruit mass and irmness). Majority of
signiicant diferences were recorded on peach fruit quality parameters while on nectarine only minor number of parameters
was signiicantly afected. It is probably due to young tree age and
therefore red photoselective nets didn’t show their whole efect.
Hence, further research is needed to validate these preliminary
indings as the red photoselective nets have shown some good
trends towards vegetative and some fruit quality parameters of
young peach trees.
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