Title: Fruit quality in five apple cultivars trees trained to intensive training system: Geneva y-trellis
Abstract: Orchard intensification is motivated by the desire to produce fruit early in the life of the orchard to rapidly recover establishment costs. Intensification is possible by using dwarfing rootstocks that control tree size, induce early cropping, and produce large quantities of fruit relative to the amount of wood produced. Therefore, this study attempts to compare some yield and fruit properties of five apple cultivars grown in the Karaj area of Iran. The concerned apple cultivars were ?Golab-kohans? (Iranian cultivar), ?Fuji?, ?Starking?, ?Delbar estival? and ?Prime rose? (commercial foreign cultivars) that were grafted on M.9 rootstock which were trained in Geneva Y-trellis system. All of these trees were planted in winter 2004. The trees were irrigated from the second year after planting and the method of irrigation was drip irrigation. pH (4.07) and Humidity Content (85.96 %) were the highest with the ?Golab-kohans? (Iranian cultivar). Also ?Delbar estival? had the highest fruit length (6.13 cm), L/D (0.87) and TSS (15.77). ?Starking? had the highest fruit weight (145.24 gr), fruit diameter (6.91 cm) and Ash (0.71 %). In addition, the most dry matter (20.13 %), fruit firmness (13.13 kg/cm2) and titrable acid (0.72 %) were recorded with ?Fuji?.