Blackcurrants: Evaluation of dormancy breaking treatments & Field evaluation of Erger G for dormancy breaking (Combined project with GSK213)

Summary

This work has identified potential alternative treatments for dormancy breaking in blackcurrant and has quantified the effects in a year when natural winter chill levels were lower than normal. Two adjuvants, Activator 90 and Silwett-L77, showed potential as alternatives to Erger G when applied with calcium nitrate as dormancy breaking treatments on Ben Tirran blackcurrant with a winter chill deficit of just under 1000 hours <7C. However, the field observations on Erger G showed that it cannot be assumed that: (a) treatments showing potential from bud stick tests will perform as well in the field (b) that the initial forcing of bud break will necessarily result in a more even crop.

Sector:
Horticulture
Project code:
SF 012 (GSK214) 
Date:
20 February 2007 - 15 September 2007
Project leader:
JOHN ATWOOD, ADAS

Downloads

SF 012 (GSK214)_GS_Final_2007 SF 012 (GSK214)_Report_Final_2007

About this project

A number of commercial blackcurrant cultivars are known to have a significant winter chill requirement to enable even bud break and uniform ripening.  With the prospect of warmer winters, this chill requirement may be increasingly difficult to achieve. A range of treatments were analysed on cut bud sticks of dormant Ben Tirran that had not received sufficient winter chilling for normal bud development. 

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