Increasing Fruit Size of Royal Gala 



Duane W. Greene, Wesley R. Autio, Joseph Sincuk, 



James Krupa, and William J. Lord 



Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Massachusetts 



Gala has rapidly risen in popularity to the 

 point where it is now one of the most heavily 

 planted apple cultivars in the world. It has 

 many desirable attributes including very high 

 quality, attractive appearance, precocity, and 

 high production. One of the major faults of this 

 cultivar is small fruit size. While prices in the 

 market for Gala generally are high, a premium 

 is paid for large fruit. We initiated several 

 studies specifically intended to investigate con- 

 ditions that may influence the size of Gala, with 

 the goal of identifying practices which may in- 

 crease Gala size. 



Type of Fruiting Wood 



It was suggested [American Fruit Grower 

 109(4):42-44, 1989] that the largest Gala apples 

 are borne terminally on short shoots (3 to 10 

 inches), that the smallest are produced on one- 

 year-old wood, and that those of intermediate 

 size are found on spurs of two-year-old wood. We 

 selected 29 five-year-old Royal Gala/M.26 trees, 

 and at normal harvest, we harvested from each 

 tree lateral fruit on one-year-old wood, terminal 



fruit on shoots 6 to 10 inches long, and fruit 

 located on two-year-old spurs. Fruit from each 

 tree were weighed and the diameters were mea- 

 sured. Fruit located on one-year-old wood were 

 significantly smaller than those on other types 

 of wood (Table 1), a relationship that is common 

 in most apple cultivars. Fruit located terminally 

 on short shoots was of comparable weight and 

 diameter to fruit located on two-year-old spurs. 

 Gala normally produce some short shoots; 

 however, based on this study, there does not 

 appear to be a good reason to increase artificially 

 the number of short shoots on Gala, since fruit 

 borne on these shoots were no larger than fruit 

 on spurs. Efforts should be made, however, to 

 reduce the number of fruit on one-year old wood, 

 since fruit size on this wood was significantly 

 smaller. Fruit borne on the tips of branches 

 weigh down the branches, reducing growth and 

 light penetration into the interior of the tree and 

 lower branches. Fruit on one-year-old wood 

 ultimately reduce fruit quality and devitalize 

 fruiting spurs and short shoots. Strategies 

 should be developed to remove fruit on one-year- 

 old wood selectively. 



Table 1. Relationships of fruit location on the tree and size at 

 harvest of Royal Gala apples. 



Fruit 

 location 



Fruit 

 diameter 



(in) 



Fruit 



weight 



(oz) 



1-year wood 

 2-year wood 

 Short shoots 



2.70 b 

 2.86 a 

 2.83 a 



5.2 b 



6.1 a 



6.2 a 



*Means within columns not followed by the same letter are 

 significantly different at odds of 19:1. 



Fruit Notes, Spring, 1992 



