We studied the relief of water stress associated with fruit thinning in pear (Pyrus communis L.) trees during drought to determine what mechanisms, other than stomatal adjustment, were involved. Combinations of control irrigation (equal to crop water use less effective rainfall) and deficit irrigation (equal to 20% of control irrigation), fruit load (unthinned and thinned to 40 fruits per tree)...

Rhagoletis juglandis Cresson is a specialist that deposits its eggs into the husks of developing walnut fruit. Like other walnut infesting ßies in the R. suavis group, R. juglandis actively superparasitizes its larval hosts. However, little is known regarding the degree to which hosts are reused and the ecological context under which host reuse occurs. This Þeld study examined the pattern of ho...

the purpose of this research was to assess the influence of several orchard systems involving trees trained to different leader numbers on growth, cropping, and fruit quality of two apple cultivars. the study was conducted during 1994-2007 at the fruit experimental station in samotwór, next to wrocław (south-western poland). one-year-old trees of ‘elstar’ and ‘jonagold’ cultivars on the m.9 roo...

The influence of late-season boron (B) application on the bud B concentration and fruit set was studied in sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.). The experiment was carried out on 5-year-old ‘Summit’ and ‘Hedelfinger’ trees on rootstock Gisela 5 in Fruit Growing centre Gačnik. Trees were sprayed with B (1% Bortrack) or water (control). Differences in B concentration were measured between cultivars, th...

Seasonal distributions of the western cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis indifferens Curran (Diptera: Tephritidae), in sweet cherry (Prunus avium (L.) L.) (major host), black hawthorn (occasional developmental host) (Crataegus douglasii Lindley), and other trees were determined in a ponderosa pine ecosystem in Washington state, USA. The hypothesis that most fly dispersal from cherry trees occurs afte...

Many fruit trees undergo cycles of heavy fruit load (ON-Crop) in one year, followed by low fruit load (OFF-Crop) the following year, a phenomenon known as alternate bearing (AB). The mechanism by which fruit load affects flowering induction during the following year (return bloom) is still unclear. Although not proven, it is commonly accepted that the fruit or an organ which senses fruit presen...

despite the profusion of flowers that develop on olive trees, only a few set fruit during the growing season and only about 1-2% of the fruit remains on the trees at maturity. therefore, to maximize fruit set and yield, it is important for growers to understand the cross-compatibility between cultivars when planning to establish an olive orchard. this study was carried out in shiraz, fars provi...

We evaluated crop load, fruit yield and size in several grapefruit blocks on the central Florida Ridge and in the Indian River areas over three growing seasons to determine potential causes of elongated, sheepnosed grapefruit. Previous studies showed that relatively higher rates of N fertilization and high early season (February-July) temperatures within tree canopies resulted in high percentag...

Answering the fundamental ecological question of what determines animal abundance has become critical with the accelerating need for informed management plans for endangered species. A major difficulty in testing general hypotheses to account for variation in abundance is that periods of food scarcity, which may be responsible for limiting population size, occur on a superannual basis. Research...