Performance of ‘William’s’ pear grafted onto three rootstocks

Abstract

Pears are the most imported fruit from Brazil and thus, being an important opportunity to Brazilian growers. However, there are still some problems that restrict pear production, such as the lack of suitable rootstocks. The aim of this study was to assess growth, yield efficiency and fruit quality of 'William's' pear grafted on quinces 'Champion' and 'Melliforme' and P. calleryana. The experiment was performed during 2009/2010 growing season at the Centro Agropecuário da Palma, FAEM/UFPel. The experimental design was a completely randomized block with three replications per treatment. The assessed parameters were trunk cross sectional area, shoot length, yield efficiency, number of fruit per tree, soluble solids, flesh firmness, fruit weight and fruit size. It was found that 'William's' pear is more efficient and less vigorous when grafted on 'Champion' quince, thus being a potential scion x rootstock combination for commercial pear planting at medium densities. Moreover, fruit of trees grafted on quince rootstocks accumulated higher amount of soluble solids.

Growth, Yield and Quality Performance of Pear (Pyrus communis L.) cv. ‘Santa Maria’ under High Density Planting

“…Another study of Engin [17] reported TCSA as follows 'Santa Maria'/QA (15.29 to 50.0 cm 2 ), 'Santa Maria'/OHF333 (13.83 to 39.01 cm 2 ). Similarly, no significant results of TCSA reported by [55] when grafted 'Williams' onto Champion, Melliforme and P. calleryana rootstocks. Our results are similar to the above-mentioned previous studies.…”

“…The highest yield efficiency (kg/cm 2 ) in the 'Carrick' pear cultivar grafted on different quince rootstocks was in Portugal and MC rootstocks [54]. Pasa and coauthors [55] stated that the highest yield per tree (kg/tree), number of fruits per plant and yield efficiency (kg/cm 2 ) in 'Williams' pear cultivar was in Champion rootstock. Kucuker and Aglar [30] noted that the yield per plant varied from 3.80 kg/tree to 7.60 kg/tree, and yield efficiency varied from 2.22 kg/cm 2 to 2.97 kg/cm 2 in 'Santa Maria' pear cultivar on the Quince A rootstock.…”

“…Even irrigation was done properly but such conditions increased graft incompatibility between pear and quince [37,61]. The shoot length of one year old was observed to be varied in the case of different rootstocks [55]. The rootstocks with partial incompatibility with the pear cultivars tended to early cropping and limited shoot growth, especially in the fruiting years [12].…”

“…Kucuker and Aglar [30] noted that the yield per plant varied from 3.80 kg/tree to 7.60 kg/tree, and yield efficiency varied from 2.22 kg/cm 2 to 2.97 kg/cm 2 in 'Santa Maria' pear cultivar on the Quince A rootstock. The number and quality of flowers produced, the efficacy of pollination and fruit set, the severity of natural or artificial fruitlet abscission, and the degree and rate of cellular proliferation and expansion in the persisting fruits, besides the mentioned factors also genetic (scion cultivar and rootstock), environmental elements (climate and soil) as well as a variety of management factors (training, pruning, plant growth regulators, manuring), all influence pear yields [5,23,25,30,52,55]. It can be said that the results obtained from this study are in accordance with previous studies on similar subjects in pear.…”

Determination of Phenological and Morphological Characteristics of Some Standard Pear Cultivars on Different Quince Clonal Rootstocks

“…In contrast, the shortest was obtained from hawthorn seedlings and MC rootstock (Akbari et al, 2014). Considering the effect of Champion, Melliforme, and P. calleryana pear rootstock on the annual shoot length of the 'Williams' cultivar, they found that the growth force of Champion rootstock was weaker than other rootstocks (Pasa et al, 2020).…”