Induction of Lateral Branching in Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium L. cvs. “Siah Mashhad” & “Dovomras”) Trees in Nursery

This study was carried out in two independent experiments on one year old sweet cherry (Prunus avium L. cvs. “Siah Mashhad” and “Dovomras”) nursery trees with the main purpose of improving lateral shoot formation and increasing the quality of trees. In the first experiment, heading treatments (0, 40, 60 and 80 cm above ground) and in the second experiment, Arbolin treatments (0, 5, 15, 25 mL·L-1) was investigated. Trees were treated with foliar sprays of Arbolin in 2 times at 7-days intervals in mid-June. At the end of the growing season, the tree quality was measured on the basis of their diameter and height of trees, number, length and angels of lateral shoots. A factorial experiment was laid out in a completely randomized block design with 3 replications where each plot contained 10 trees. Results showed that all of the treatments increased the number of laterals in comparison with the control. The cultivars had different response to the treatments. Heading in 60 cm was the best treatment for improving total number of lateral shoots. The result of second experiment showed that there were significant differences between cultivars and Arbolin treatments. The number of lateral shoots enhanced with application of higher concentrations and repeated Arbolin treatments in both cultivars. Arbolin treatments had more significant effect on the number and length of lateral shoots than heading treatments.