Effects of limiting irrigation and of manual pruning on brown rot incidence in peach

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Mercier, Vincent | Bussi, Claude | Plénet, Daniel | Lescourret, Francoise, F.

Edité par CCSD ; Elsevier -

International audience. To limit peach brown rot incidence in 4-year-old late maturing peach trees, cultivar ‘Nectaross’, four combinations of irrigation and pruning treatments were assessed: conventional (Conv) irrigation (I) and pruning (P) (ConvI+ConvP); modified (Mod) irrigation and conventional pruning (ModI+ConvP); conventional irrigation and modified pruning (ConvI+ModP); and modified irrigation and pruning (ModI+ModP). Modified irrigation and pruning involved water deprivation and manual pruning, respectively. In 3 successive years, in the conditions of the Middle Rhone Valley in France, the lowest brown rot incidences were detected under (ModI+ModP) and the highest under (ConvI+ConvP), whereas brown rot incidences under (ModI+ConvP) and (ConvI+ModP) were intermediate. The lower brown rot incidences under modified treatments occurred before fruit maturity and were maintained until post-harvest storage. They suggest that appropriate cultural practices, water deprivation and manual pruning possibly decrease peach disease sensitivity, and this could result in reducing use of pesticide sprays against brown rot in orchards. Moreover, water deprivation and manual pruning tended to enhance peach taste quality—measured as a decrease of fruit firmness, and increase of total soluble solids—compared with conventional irrigation and pruning, but the average fruit weight decreased under the modified treatments. Nevertheless, because of the increase in marketable first-class fruit as a result of water deprivation and in fruit yield as a result of manual pruning, the relative profitability of fruit production tended to be higher under the modified treatments than under conventional conditions.

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