الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract The present study was carried out in 2 successive seasons of 2000 and 2001 on 11-year-old fruiting apple trees cv. Anna (Malus demestica, L.) grown in clay soil of a private orchard located in El-Mahala El-Kobra City, Gharbia Governorate. It was designed to examine the effects of pre-harvest four sprays of CaCl2 or Ca(NO3)2 solutions at two concentrations, 0.4 % and 0.8 % each of them either alone or combined with 20 ppm IAA on pre-harvest fruits DROPping percentage, fruits yield expressed as fruits yield/tree in kgs and fruits yield/feddan in tons, certain physicochemical characteristics of fruits at harvest time. Post-harvest, storage ability of the treated fruits and changes in their characteristics during 9 days storage at ambient conditions were studied. The current results also completely avoided the application of 0.8 % Ca(NO3)2 + 20 ppm IAA sprays (T8), since Anna apple trees under this treatment resulted in, among the tested treatments, high fruit DROPping percentage (23.4 %) and the lowest yield either as fruits kg/tree (31.7 kg) or fruits ton/feddan (7.93 ton). At harvest time, the fruits measured the lowest fruit weight (115.51 g), size (127.10 cm) and firmness (8.29 Ib/Inch2). Moreover, such fruits contained high juice acidity % (0.578 %), the lowest skin anthocyanins (0.479 O.D.), low flesh sugar (10.71 g/100g FDW) and the lowest Ca2+ content (0.343 g/100 g FDW). |