Throughout two consecutive seasons in 2022 and 2023, the experiment was conducted at a private orchard located 90 kilometers distant along the Cairo-Alexandria desert road in the Behera governorate on 8-year-old of desirable pecan trees planted in sandy soil under drip irrigation, the trees under study were pruned by four different pruning techniques to study their effect on the growth, flowering, and productivity. The first pruning method was pinching, which involves removing the apical meristem of the tip of one-year-old shoots; the second was mild pruning, which involves removing 25% of the branch length. Continually, the third one was severe pruning, which included cutting off half of the branch length, and the fourth was unpruned trees (control). The maximum bud burst percentage, number of new shoots, shoot length, number of leaves, leaflet dimension, fruit set percentage, nut weight, nut dimension, and nut kernel percentage were generally recorded by severe pruning. Conversely, the pinching treatment resulted in the highest number of pistillate (female) inflorescences, the greatest number of flowers per pistillate inflorescence, and the most nuts per tree, leading to the highest overall yield with moderate nut quality. The unpruned trees seemed to be the worst. Therefore, it might be advised to use the pinching method that yielded the highest amount of nuts with a moderately high quality.
Keywords : Pecan, desirable, pruning, flowering, yield, Fruit quality,
Received:4/24/2024 12:00:00 AM; Accepted: 5/27/2024 12:00:00 AM