PHYSIOLOGICAL AND ECOLOGICAL STUDIES ON EARLI GRAND PEACH TREES GROWN UNDER DIFFERENT PROTECTIVE SYSTEMS OF SAND AND WIND A- PHYSIOLOGICAL STUDIES

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 & 1.5 m. height) and
artificial (Theran and Plastic nets as 1 & 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
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND ECOLOGICAL STUDIES ON EARLI192
and fruit quality of Earli Grand peach cv. under North Sinai
conditions.