The influence of some agrotechnological methods on quality indications of one-year-old apple seedlings

The intensive development of fruit-growing, which is based on high yields in the first years after planting, lay a claim to the quality of planting material. Under the soil-climatic conditions of the Orel region the field experiment has been conducted for three years (2014-2016). The reaction of different apple varieties was studied under the influence of mechanical methods and foliar treatments with drugs of different chemical constitution in the second field of the nursery of the All Russian Research Institute of Fruit Crop Breeding. The main goal of that experiment was to study the influence of agrotechnological methods for raising crowned apple seedlings of one-year old. The foliar treatments and mechanical methods influenced the quality indications of one-year-old apple seedlings in different ways. When using mechanical methods (topping and topping with the removal of 3-4 upper laminas) the formation of lateral shoots with simultaneous reduction of seedling height was observed in comparison with the variant without the mechanical impact. The topping provided the formation of 1.0-2.7 lateral shoots depending on the variety, with a significant increase of this indicator when topping with the removal of 3-4 upper laminas the variety Rozhdestvenskoye had 1.5 while Veteran had 3.7 lateral shoots. Foliar treatments without the mechanical impact showed no positive influence on the formation of lateral shoots. As a result of the studies it was determined that the application of mechanical methods provided the significant increase of lateral shoots while interacting with foliar treatments (Epin, Rastvorin, urea) of certain varieties had a positive effect on the increase of a number of biometric indications. Among the studied agrotechnological methods the use of the mechanical method - topping with the removal of upper 3-4 laminas in the combination with foliar treatments with the solution of Epin and Rastvorin was efficient for raising crowned one-year-old apple seedlings.