Effects of Centrifugal Pruning on Agronomic Performance and Fruit Quality in a Medium-Maturing Peach Cultivar

Centrifugal pruning (CentP) was compared to conventional pruning (ConvP) over a five-year period beginning in 2004 with five-year-old peach trees, of the medium-maturing cultivar 'Caprice', under the conditions prevalent in the Middle Rhone Valley in France. CentP is a new training system for peach trees designed to improve light distribution in the canopy by creating a "light well" around the scaffold through early manual pruning. CentP tended to increase total soluble solids compared to ConvP, but the average fruit weight tended to decrease under CentP. Nevertheless, because of the increase in fruit yield, notably as a result of the greater number of flowers per shoot length, the relative profitability of fruit production was higher under CentP than under ConvP. Labour demand increased under CentP compared to ConvP, in the same proportion as monetary returns, so that the supplemental costs due to this innovative pruning method tended to be economically compensated for by increased fruit production. Water sprouts were removed in spring under CentP, instead of in summer under ConvP. Because summer is considered to be the busiest time of the year for fruit producers, CentP appears to be more advantageous in terms of work time management in the peach orchard than ConvP. Brown rot incidence tended to decrease at fruit maturity and until post-harvest storage under CentP compared to ConvP. This suggests that appropriate pruning practices possibly decrease peach disease sensitivity, which could lead to the reduced use of pesticide sprays to control brown rot in the orchard.