In the past, chemical thinning dominated in fruit orchards. This paper for special issue outlines alternatives to crop load management (CLM) and its effect on size, firmness, sugar, starch, weight, indicating ripeness quality, yield, alternate bearing. A total of 450 apple trees (Malus domestica Borkh., cv. ‘Roter Boskoop’; six years old) M9 rootstock were used at Klein-Altendorf experimental s...

The growth and development of Helicoverpa armigera was observed in the laboratory by feeding them on different foods viz; leaf, flower and fruit of lady finger, cotton, pigeon pea and chick pea. Based on the food ingested, food digested and food excreted as well as on weight and size of the larvae and the duration of larval period, the fruit of chick pea was found to be the most suitable food f...

This experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of silver nanoparticles pulsing treatment (0, 25, 75 and 125 mg L−1) on vase life and some postharvest physiological parameters of cut rose flower ʻHigh & Magicʼ in sucrose solution (0, 2 and 3%). This research performed as a factorial experiment based on a completely randomized design with three replications under 23 ± 2 °C, 60 ± 5% RH and...

The effects of salicylic acid (SA) and Putrescine (Put), on cut Narcissus was studied. SA (0, 100 and 200 mg l-1) and Put (0, 150 and 300 mg l-1), their combinations were tested as preservative mixture. This study was conducted in a factorial experiment with complete randomized design on 108 Narcissus cut flowers in horticulture laboratory of agriculture faculty of Islamic...

In this study, the effects of peppermint and rose extracts on delaying the aging of Alstroemeria spp. cut flowers were investigated. Peppermint and rose extracts were used in concentrations of 10, 20 and 30%. Quantitative and qualitative traits such as vase life, flower opening index, water uptake, fresh weight, dry weight, population of bacteria in vase solution and stem end, ion leakage, decr...

The influence of scoring during the flower induction phase was investigated. Pear trees, Pyrus communis L. cv. Doyenne du Comice, Forelle and Rosemarie were used in the study, conducted in the Western Cape, South Africa. The yield of ‘Doyenne du Comice’ increased by 38% in scored trees compared to the control. The increase in yield was due to 50% more fruits on the scored trees than on the cont...

Sexual dimorphism is one of the most widespread and recognizable patterns of phenotypic variation in the biotic world. Sexual dimorphism in floral display is striking in the dioecious plant Silene latifolia, with males making many, small flowers compared to females. We investigated this dimorphism via artificial selection on two populations to determine whether genetic variation exists within p...