-3- 



undesirable and regardless, longer wooden spreaders are required 

 when the trees becomes older. One grower advocated using no 

 spreaders shorter than 12 inches in length. This length of 

 spreader is unsuitable for 1-to 3-year-old trees. 



Summer pruning is gaining favor as a method of controlling 

 excessive vigor and "compacting" young trees and for controlling 

 size and vigor of bearing trees. An application of Alar-85* 

 and Ethrel* is also being used to control growth on young trees 

 large enough to bear. Alar-85 alone is used on bearing trees 

 to restrict growth and increase fruit fulness . 



Specific Comments on Oregon 



Of most interest in Willamette Valley were 2 trellised hedge- 

 row plantings on M9 or M26 with tree height comparable to the 

 12 feet or 15 feet alley width. In Massachusetts trellised trees 

 on M9 rootstock are short and can be harvested by a picker stand- 

 ing on the ground. Thus, the tall hedgerows in the Willamette 

 Valley should produce higher per acre yields than the trellised 

 trees in Massachusetts and also allows the removal of low limbs 

 that have to be harvested by bending or kneeling less costly 

 from the standpoint of reduced yields. 



The trees in the trellised hedgerow planting of Dr. Eugene 

 Petroff in Salem are on M9 and M26 rootstocks. The trees are 

 attached to a 4-wire trellis by staples. However, when the 

 leaders are too small for stapling, they are tied to the wires. 

 The trees are trained like free-standing trees with pyramid 

 (Christmas tree) shape; the only function of the wire is to pro- 

 vide leader support. Gravensteins on M9 planted in 1975 are 

 spaced 8 feet by 15 feet with 1 tree in 9 being a Jerseymac 

 pollenizer. The Gravenstein trees produced 12.7 tons per acre 

 in 1980. The planting also contains Delicious and Golden Deli- 

 cious on M26 rootstock planted in 1975 and spaced 6 feet by 15 

 feet and 6 feet by 14 feet, respectively. The Delicious and 

 Golden Delicious produced 6 tons and 32 tons, respectively, in 

 1980 but the Goldens had a light crop in 1981. 



An adaption of Tatura Trellis, developed in Australia for 

 mechanization of peach harvest, was being tried in the Petroff 

 orchard. Each peach tree will have 2 limbs attached to wire so 

 each can be trained at an angle of 60-70° from the horizontal 

 towards limbs in the next row. The final canopy of the trees 

 will be "v" shape. The goal is to maximize yield rather than 

 attempt mechanization of harvest. 



*Trade name 



