“Bending Of The Twig” For Heavier Crops From Fruit Trees

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 13, 16 January 1948, Page 7

“Bending Of The Twig” For Heavier Crops From Fruit Trees

Recent visitors to Massey Agricultural College have been interested and intrigued by the increase in production of fruit which has resulted from the practice of bending down some branches of young and vigorous fruit trees below the horizontal plane. Certain facts are known regarding the behaviour of trees under various cultural measures, and one of these observed facts is that the more horizontal the position of any branch the greater its reproductive activity and the slower is its vegetative growth. At pruning time, and with this fact in mind, one-year-old branches which are not required for the formation of the tree, and which are in a more or less vertical position, can be pulled down and tied in position so that the tip of the branch is well below the horizontal. A great number of these branches in the formative years of the tree would be cut out either partially or wholly, but if they can be induced to crop for a year or two, they can later be removed after they have served a useful purpose, or after the tree has naturally settled down to cropping. This system is perhaps not applicable to all kinds of fruit trees, owing to their varying fruiting habits, but it can be practiced on most varieties of apples, pears and English plums. In the growing season following tying down, fruit buds will form, and in the year following a crop will be carried. Apple and pear trees grafted on the refurnishing system can with advantage be handled in this way, by tying down those vigorous upright shoots which would normally be removed at pruning time. If a lateral is left unpruned and tied down, so that the sap flow is restricted, the proportion of carbonhydrates in the tissues of that lateral is made higher than the proportion of soil solutes.