Author
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Rose, Ann |
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Takeda, Fumiomi |
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Submitted to: Annual Cumberland Shenandoah Fruit Workers Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 3/15/2015 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Blackberry plants are vigorous and produce long lateral canes. However, to keep the plant canopy narrow for better spray coverage and to aid in fruit harvesting, the canes are typically pruned severely (e.g. primocanes are topped at the 6-ft height and the lateral canes are cut back to 18- to 24-inch lengths), which lead to reduced bud numbers per plant and yield potential. USDA scientists developed a new trellis structure called the rotating cross-arm (RCA) that creates a curtain-like plant canopy without the need to cut back long lateral canes, thus producing plants with several fold increases in bud number compared to conventionally pruned plants. In this study, we characterized the number and location of fruit clusters, and the size of fruit clusters on all sectors of curtain-like canopy of blackberry plants trained on the rotating cross-arm trellis in order to determine how yield increases occurred. We learned that the lateral canes that emerged from node number 7 to about 25 on the main canes were more productive than those laterals that developed on nodes beyond 25. More fruit clusters were found on nodes number 6 to 25 than between 1 to 5 or beyond node 26. This information was helpful in deciding how many nodes to retain on the main canes and lateral canes to optimize plant yield. |
