effect of pruning and nutrition on some quantitative and qualitative characteristics of pomegranate (punica granatum l. cv. robab)

pomegranate is one of the major horticultural crops in iran, but studies about this product; especially its pruning is very little. therefore this study was carried out to assess the effect of pruning and nutrition on pomegranate cultivar “robab” in qaemieh, fars province during 2008-2009. this research was conducted factorial experiment based on randomized complete block design (rcbd) with 5 pruning treatments (p1, p2, p3, p4, p5) and 3 levels of npk (0, 250 and 500 gr per tree). our results showed that yield, juice volume, fruit and aril weight had negative correlation with pruning severity, but had positive correlation with npk fertilization rate, as trees with p3 pruning treatment receiving fertilizer had yield, juice volume, fruit and aril weight more than other treatments. fruit skin thickness had negative and positive correlation with nutrition and pruning rate, respectively. nutrition had no significant effect on total soluble solid (tss), while all pruning treatments increased fruit total soluble solids. pruning reduced the amount of citric acid. also, there was direct relationship between titratable acidity (ta) and ascorbic acid with nutrition.