Fruit size in kiwi trees based on the number of seeds
Abstract
This study evaluated the influence of the number of seeds of four kiwifruit cultivars about
the fresh weight, length and width of fruits. The research used four kiwifruit cultivars (Monty,
Elmwood, Abbott and Bruno) grafted on rootstock 'Bruno', conducted in support system type T, with
spacing of 6.00 m x 3.00 m, and mixed pruning system. Samples of 30 fruits per cultivar were
randomly collected in April 2008. The fresh mass, in grams, length and width of fruit, in millimeters,
were associated with the number of seeds per fruit by regression analysis. The results showed that the
major number of seeds per fruit resulted in bigger size kiwis in all cultivars. The required number of
seeds per fruit to achieve standard commercial in Elmwood and Monty cultivars was approximately
400 seeds, while for cultivars Bruno and Abbott it was approximately 600-700 seeds. The fruit shape
ranged according to the cultivar: Elmwood and Monty had larger mass and diameter per fruit, while
Bruno had the largest relation between fruit length and diameter. An effective pollination must be
carried in kiwifruit orchards for obtaining larger fruit size and higher productivity levels.
Downloads
The authors declare that the work has not been previously published, nor sent simultaneously for publication in another journal and that they agree with the submission, content and transfer of the publication rights of the article in question to the scientific journal Pesquisa Agropecuária Gaúcha - PAG. The authors assume full responsibility for the originality of the article, and may incur on them any charges arising from claims by third parties in relation to the authorship of the article. The full reproduction of the journal's articles in other free-to-use electronic media is permitted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
