Uticaj zastiranja na vodni režim i reproduktivni potencijal Oblačinske višnje u periodu uzgoja
Application of surface covering and its impact on watering regime and reproduction potential of Oblačinska sour cherry in growing season
Abstract:
The subject of the research presented in this work is the impact of surface earth covering on the watering regime and reproduction potential of the sour cherry cultivar Oblačinska, in the period of its growth. The experiment included fruit trees of various age (one-year, two-years and three-years old fruits). The covering of earth was done at the beginning of June, after the abundant rainfall of spring and the variants of the earth covering that were used were the following: black foil, white foil, organic (plant) material (rotting straw), manual piling of earth, control without cultivation. The width of the covered zone was 2 m in all of the cases. The remaining space in between the rows was maintained in the state of infertile fallow. In the variant of applying black foil as the covering material, the average content of the soil humidity at the depth of 0.0 to 0.30 cm was 17.3% , ranging between 17.3-17.2% in various-age trees. For white foil, the humidity average was 16.9% (17.6-16.1%). Favorable results were produced by the use of rotting straw as well, with the average humidity recorded at 17.4% (17.7-17.2%). In the cases when the classical soil cultivation measures are used, the results lag behind the ones described above, since the recorded average humidity was 15.8% (16.6-14.9%), and the same can be said of the control variant, where the recorded average humidity was 13.1% (13.2-13.0%). At bigger depths (30.0-60.0%), in the zone of the root system, the contents of the soil humidity was higher than in the surface layer. An average humidity content for the different variants of covering methods that were applied here was 18.1-17.9%. As opposed to this, this content was recorded at 17.0% in the manual earth piling, while the control variant produced 13.4% average soil humidity. The highest total water content in the leaf was recorded in the black foil covering, 60.2% (61.2-58.9%), whereas the lowest total water content was recorded in the control variant, 54.4% (55.0-53.2%). The flowering intensity was the highest in the cases where covering methods were applied, 3.2 on the average. At the same time, its value was the lowest at the control group (1.1). With the advancing age of the fruit trees, the flowering intensity grew, so that, over the next few years, it reached the values of 1.4-4.6 in the cases where black foil was used. As for the flowering intensity values recorded with white foil, they ranged between 1.0 and 4.6. The control group had no flowering in the first year, to reach the levels of 1.3 and 2.0 after the second and third years respectively. The best fruit-conceiving intensity was recorded with black foil - its average value was 2.2, and ranged from 0.6 to 3.8, from the first to the third year. Somewhat lower values, but almost the same progression were recorded with white foil - 1.8 (0.4-3.4) and rotting straw - 1.7 (0.3-3.3). As opposed to this, in the manual earth piling method, the flowering intensity was a mere 0.8 (0.0-1.56), while the control group recorded an even lower value - 0.5 (0.0-1.0).