THE INFLUENCES OF CERTAIN SUMMER PRUNING APPLICATIONS ON VINE YIELD AND QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF SEEDLESS GRAPES

Aiming to reveal the influences of shoot topping and cluster thinning on vine yield with some quality features of Guyot trained King’s Ruby and 2B-56 grape cultivars, this study was carried out at Research and Application Vineyard of Cukurova University Agriculture Faculty in 2006. Applications were performed successive to berry set while suckering and shoot thinning were fulfilled as is common. Cluster thinning (cutting 1/3 of cluster) improved cluster weight, cluster width, berry sizes and berry skin color (Hue angle) in King’s Ruby, while berry weight and TSS of 2B-56 increased by shoot topping (leaving five leaves after top cluster). When two transactions were applied synchronously, yield per vine increased.