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Climate Requirements
- Apple is a temperate climate, especially, cold-temperate climate fruit. During the winter rest, wood sections resist up to -35, -40°C, blooms resist up to -2.2, -2.3°C and little fruits resist up to –1.1, -2.2°C.
- Among the fruit varieties, apple is the one which requires the winter rest most. In apple trees that are unfulfilled in chilling requirements, tree gets naked. Apple also doesn’t like the summer heat. If the temperature gets higher than 40°C, growth stops and in the higher temperatures, harming begins to occur.
Soil Requirements
- Apple generally gives good results in many soil types. On the other hand, the most suitable soils for apple cultivation are well-drainage, loamy, loamy-sandy or loamy-sandy permeable, calcareous soils with 6.0-6.5 pH scales and with sufficient lime, humus and moisture.
- Fruit thinning should be made in the early stage. If thinning wouldn’t be finished before fruit buds begin to arise, even though it improves the color and the quality, products of the next year get affected negatively.
Rootstocks
- In fruit tree production, seedlings or vegetative rootstocks are used. Seeds that are used for rootstock production are acquired from wild or cultigen varieties. Vegetative rootstocks can easily be reproduced by stoolbed layering.
- The most used vegatative rootstocks:
Dwarf: M-9
Semi-dwarf: MM-106
Strong: MM-111 - Planting distance and pruning systems used in the apple garden facility change according to the apple variety and the rootstock it grafted on. For instance, spacing is 8mX8m-7mX7m and modified leader pruning system is used for standard varieties grafted on the seedling.
- Planting distance for semi-dwarf (spur) varieties grafted on seedling is 6mX3m, 5mX3m or 4mX3m depending on the soil strength. And the pruning should be made in a way that it will look like a pinewood, there will be a leader and many sub-branches namely, it will distribute the loaded fruits of the future to numerous side branches. For this reason, in the course of planting, tree crown is cut 80 cm from top. By pruning the one-third of the annual growth of second-degree stools and crown branches at the end of the first growing season and in the coming years, you can get better vegetative growth and more leaf surface on the contrary of standard varieties. The tree doesn’t bear fruits for two years and meanwhile all the originated fruits are plucked to form a strong tree crown.
- When standard varieties are grafted on M-9, dwarf vegetative rootstock, planting distance should be 1.5mX3.5m or 2mX3.5m. Starting from the plantation, leader branch got weakened and by this way stronger side branches occur. In the first four years other than weakening the leader, no pruning should be made. However, after the end of the first growing season following the plantation, side crown branches are pulled down and by this way fruit bud formation will be promoted and strength of the branches increase. After the fourth year, productivity pruning can be made. This cultivation system is known as “slender spindle.” (Figure 1)
- Both standard and spur varieties can be grafted on semi-dwarf vegetative rootstock MM-106. When the standard varieties are grafted spacing is 4mX5m or 4mX6m; when spur varieties are grafted spacing is 2mX4m and modified leader cultivation system is used.
- Both standard and spur varieties can be grafted on vigorous vegetative rootstock MM-111. Planting distance and cultivation system are similar to the seedling.
