Physiological and ecological studies on earli grand peach trees grown under different protective systems of sand and wind A- physiological studies

الملخص EN

Growth, flowering, fruit set, fruit characteristics and yield of 7-years old peach trees (Prunus persica) cv.

Earli Grand grafted on sour almond rootstock under the rainy conditions of El-kharafeen village, El-sheikh Zouid, North Sinai Governorate, Egypt as affected by biological (Napier grass and Tamarix as 1 and 1.

5 m.

height) and artificial (Theran and Plastic nets as 1 and 1.

5 m.

height) protective systems were studied in the two seasons of 2004 and 2005.

The results obtained revealed that, the protective systems significantly increased fruit set and decreased blooming period/days, flower drop, fruit drop, fruit maturity/days, fruit firmness and total fruit acidity in both seasons.

However, fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit diameter and fruit length significantly decreased in the first season only.

Meanwhile, Plastic net barriers increased tree height, tree canopy and maximum horizontal extension in both seasons, while fruit number/tree, yield and T.

S.

S.

% did not differ significantly specially in the first season but Napier grass and plastic net 1.5 m.

height increased tree yield significantly in the second season compared with the unprotected trees.

Moreover, first bloom, full bloom, end of bloom and first fruit set dates in protected trees were earlier than the unprotected ones by 2 to 12 days.

From the obtained results it could be recommend that, the use of Theran fences as an artificial protective system and Napier grass as a biological protective system is very important to improve productivity and fruit quality of Earli Grand peach cv.

under North Sinai conditions.