Scientia Horticulturae 111 (2006) 3037 www.elsevier.

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Comparison of two 6-benzyladenine formulations and carbaryl for post-bloom thinning of apples
S.A. Bound *
Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research, University of Tasmania, 13 St Johns Avenue, New Town, Tasmania 7008, Australia Received 7 June 2006; received in revised form 26 July 2006; accepted 28 July 2006

Abstract Three trials assessed the effects of two 6-benzyladenine (BA) formulations, CyLex1 and Accel1, and carbaryl/thiram (C/T) combination sprays as secondary or post-bloom thinners of Fuji, Delicious and Golden Delicious apples. Ethephon was applied as a primary thinner at full bloom (FB) on Fuji and Delicious, while NAA was used on Golden Delicious. CyLex and Accel were applied at different rates at 20 days after full bloom (dAFB) while C/T was applied as a tank mix either once, twice or three times at seven day intervals from 18 dAFB on Fuji. The Delicious and Golden Delicious were treated with either Accel or C/T. In Fuji, all CyLex treatments achieved target crop load levels and resulted in increased fruit weights, but neither Accel nor C/T achieved thinning or fruit weight targets. In Delicious Accel showed no thinning effect, while C/T thinned slightly. Accel had no thinning effect on Golden Delicious. Accel caused development of pygmy fruit in both Fuji and Delicious. All C/T, CyLex and Accel treatments increased fruit soluble solids in Fuji, while the CyLex and Accel treatments also increased fruit rmness over ethephon alone. Although not achieving target levels of thinning, C/T was more effective than Accel, however neither Accel or C/T improved fruit size. It is concluded that Accel is an ineffective thinner of Fuji, Delicious and Golden Delicious, while CyLex is an effective and consistent thinner of the difcult to thin cultivar Fuji. # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Fruit quality; Crop load; Gibberellin

1. Introduction Chemical thinning is one of the major cultural practices in apple production. Chemical thinners are applied at owering and/or during the early post-bloom period. In Australia, ethephon and naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) are applied at owering as blossom thinners while carbaryl [1-naphthyl-Nmethylcarbamate] is applied as a post-bloom thinner, either alone or in combination with thiram [bis(dimethyl thiocarbomoyl) disulphide] (Jones et al., 1998). Although carbaryl is the standard thinning treatment in many countries (Looney, 1986), it is seen as having environmental problems (Dorigini et al., 2003) and is banned in some countries (Jones et al., 1998; Costa et al., 2004). The cytokinin 6-benzyladenine (BA) has been found to have chemical thinning capabilities (Greene and Miller, 1984; Greene and Autio, 1989; Greene et al., 1990; Bound et al., 1991, 1993a, 1997) and was registered in Australia in the mid

* Tel.: +61 3 6233 6857; fax: +61 3 6233 6145. E-mail address: Sally.Bound@dpiw.tas.gov.au. 0304-4238/$ see front matter # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.scienta.2006.07.028

1990s as a post-bloom thinning agent for apples under the trade name CyLex1 (Tichon et al., 1996). Furthermore, unlike carbaryl, BA has no detrimental effects on mite predators (Thistlewood and Elfving, 1992; Elfving, 1994; Greene and Autio, 1994). In addition, unlike carbaryl it is not a persistent chemical and is more likely to meet modern environmental and food quality guidelines. Although BA has been reported to be a more consistent thinner than carbaryl when applied at the recommended time (Greene and Autio, 1994), several authors have reported a lack of thinning with formulations containing a small amount of GA4+7 (Looney, 2000; Embree et al., 2001; Schupp, 2004). There are now several formulations of BA available worldwide: CyLex (20 g/L BA, Valent BioSciences), MaxCel (19 g/L BA, Valent BioSciences), Accel (18 g/L BA, 1.8 g/L GA4+7, Valent BioSciences), Exilis (20 g/L BA, Fine Agrochemicals Ltd.), Paturyl (100 g/L BA, Reanal Factory of Laboratory Chemical), and Ritesize (18 g/L BA, 1.8 g/L GA4+7, Nufarm). Hence this study set out to evaluate the effects of a carbaryl/thiram (C/T) tank mix, and two formulations of BA, one with GA4+7 and one without, as post-bloom thinners in a thinning program on Fuji, Delicious and Golden Delicious apples.

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2. Methods Three trials were conducted in the 1993/94 season on 6-yearold Fuji at Grove and 9-year-old Delicious and Golden Delicious at Cygnet in southern Tasmania. Suitable trees were selected in September 1993, trunk girths measured and trunk cross sectional areas determined. Blossom clusters were counted on each tree and blossom density calculated. Trees of each variety were blocked into ve blossom density groups and treatments allocated at random to single tree plots within each block, giving ve replicates per treatment. Depending on cultivar, either ethephon or NAA was applied at full bloom (FB). The post-bloom thinners used were the standard carbaryl/thiram mix recommended for post-bloom thinning (Jones et al., 1998), consisting of a tank mix of 1000 mg/L carbaryl and 1200 mg/L thiram or two different benzyladenine formulations. These were CyLex (ABG-3062; 20 g/L BA; Abbott Laboratories, N. Chicago, Illinois), the original formulation used in previous Australian work (Bound et al., 1991, 1993a, 1997) and Accel (ABG-3164; 18 g/L BA, 1.8 g/L GA4+7; Abbott Laboratories, N. Chicago, Illinois) these two products are now produced by Valent BioSciences. For Delicious only, the program included the registered application rate of Cytolin1 (19 g/L BA, 19 g/L GA4+7; Abbott Laboratories, N. Chicago, Illinois) of 25 mg/L applied at king petal. Trial 1 Fuji Ethephon at 200 mg/L was applied as the primary thinner on Fuji at FB (BBCH Scale 65, Meier, 2001). The post-bloom sprays applied after ethephon were one, two or three applications of C/T at 18; 18 and 25; or 18, 25 and 32 days after full bloom (dAFB), or one application of CyLex or Accel at 125, 150, 175 or 200 mg/L at 20 dAFB. Trial 2 Delicious Cytolin at 25 mg/L was applied at king petal, followed by a FB application of ethephon at 80 mg/L. This was followed by either one, two or three applications of C/T at 18; 18 and 25; or 18, 25 and 32 dAFB, or one application of Accel at 125, 150, 175 or 200 mg/L 20 dAFB. Trial 3 Golden Delicious NAA at 7 mg/L was applied as the primary thinner on Golden Delicious at FB and 5 dAFB, followed by Accel at 100, 150 or 200 mg/L 20 dAFB; or one, two or three applications of C/T at 18; 18 and 25; or 18, 25 and 32 dAFB. An unsprayed control, hand-thin and primary thinner only treatments were included in all trials. The Delicious trial also included ethephon plus Accel and Cytolin plus ethephon treatments. All sprays were applied by hand lance, and included the wetter Tween 20 (polyoxyethylene sorbitan monolaurate) at 1.25 mL/L. Ethephon, NAA and C/T were applied to runoff (4000 L/ha), and Accel and CyLex were applied to the point of drip at the rate of 1200 L/ha (Tichon et al., 1996). Weather conditions during the owering and post-bloom period were relatively stable. Conditions at spray application are presented in Table 1.

Table 1 Weather conditions at spray application; FB = full bloom, dAFB = days after FB Application timing (i) Fuji FB 18 dAFB 25 dAFB 32 dAFB (ii) Delicious, King bloom FB 5 dAFB 18 dAFB 20 dAFB 25 dAFB 32 dAFB Chemical applied Temperature (8C) Relative humidity (%) 45 52 55 49 62 40 39 45 52 49 55 Cloud cover (%) 100 Nil 80 Nil 100 Nil 80 Nil 80 Nil 75 Wind (knots)

Ethephon Carbaryl BA, carbaryl Carbaryl

17 24 20 18

Calm Calm 5 Calm Calm Calm 5 Calm Calm 5 Calm

Golden Delicious Cytolin 15 Ethephon, NAA 21 NAA 15 Carbaryl 20 BA 20 Carbaryl 18 Carbaryl 22

Fruit was harvested in March/April and numbers and weights of fruit recorded for each tree. Fruit was graded for size. Pygmy fruit were not included in the fruit weight and were recorded separately in size results. Samples of 25 randomly selected fruit from each replicate were examined for number of viable seeds, length/diameter (L/D) ratio, fruit rmness (esh pressure), soluble solids and russet. Fruit length and diameter were measured using Vernier callipers. Fruit esh rmness was measured on pared esh with a penetrometer using a tip with a diameter of 11 mm. Juice expressed from the apples during the rmness measurements was collected and soluble solids (SS) concentration assessed with an Atago PR-1 digital refractometer. The apples were then cut in half and the number of viable seeds counted. In trial 1, randomly selected fruit samples were placed into air storage at 0.5 8C and 80% relative humidity for six months and then soluble solids concentration and fruit rmness determined. Return bloom was assessed the following spring in October 1994. Data were analysed by analysis of variance with treatment effects orthogonally partitioned into components. Where necessary data were transformed to a square root or log scale to normalize the data for analysis. Data are presented as mean values for each treatment combination. Results described as signicant were at a probability level of 0.05 and Fishers least signicant difference (LSD) ( p = 0.05), calculated after Steel and Torrie (1980), was used for comparison of treatment means. To enable an understanding of the signicance of the results obtained in relation to commercial situations, crop load and fruit weight/size results were related to commercial target levels as described by Jones et al. (1992) for Fuji, Koen et al. (1988) for Delicious, and Jones et al. (1983, 1988) for Golden Delicious. 3. Results 3.1. Fuji All treatments thinned signicantly compared with the control (Table 2). The C/T and CyLex treatments gave

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Table 2 The effect of two formulations of 6-benzyladenine (CyLex and Accel) and carbaryl/thiram (C/T) tank mix on crop load, fruit weight and fruit size on Fuji apples Treatment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Control Hand-thin 200 mg/L ethephon at FB (E) E + C/T 18 dAFB E + C/T 18, 25 dAFB E + C/T 18, 25, 32 dAFB E + 125 mg/L CyLex E + 150 mg/L CyLex E + 175 mg/L CyLex E + 200 mg/L CyLex E + 125 mg/L Accel E + 150 mg/L Accel E + 175 mg/L Accel E + 200 mg/L Accel LSD ( p = 0.05) Commercial target levels No. of fruit per 100 blossom clusters 269 155 189 156 149 132 116 84 65 96 165 156 164 157 32 80110 g de f de de cd bc ab a ab ef de def def No. of fruit per cm2 TCSA 12.34 6.95 9.32 7.56 6.77 6.89 5.71 4.02 3.34 4.39 7.47 8.01 7.89 7.67 1.83 46 f cd e de cd cd bc ab a ab cd de de de Mean fruit weight (g) 150 213 172 196 187 198 226 237 249 251 188 177 173 180 27 200 a cd ab b bc b de de e e bc ab ab b Fruit 80 mm diameter (%) a 2.2 6.2 3.3 4.9 4.5 5.0 6.7 6.9 6.9 7.6 5.5 5.7 5.3 5.7 1.2 (50) a (7) de (39) ab (46) c (28) bc (22) cd (26) ef (46) ef (47) ef (49) f (57) cd (31) cd (33) cd (29) cd (33) Pygmy fruit less than 40 mm (%)a 1.1 0.7 0.9 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.9 0.8 2.2 2.7 2.7 2.6 0.7 (0) a (1.0) a (0.0) a (0.3) a (0.1) a (0.3) a (0.3) a (0.2) a (0.0) a (0.6) a (0.2) b (5.2) b (7.4) b (8.1) b (6.8)

CyLex and Accel applied 20 days after full bloom (dAFB); C/T = 1000 mg/L carbaryl and 1200 mg/L thiram tank mix; TCSA = trunk cross-sectional area. a Squareroot transformed (gures in parentheses are actual percentages).

additional thinning over that achieved by ethephon alone. No Accel treatment consistently thinned more than ethephon alone over the two crop load variables All CyLex treatments achieved or nearly achieved the target crop load levels, but neither C/T nor Accel thinned sufciently. The 175 mg/L CyLex concentration over thinned, however there was no signicant difference between this concentration and the 150 and 200 mg/L treatments. There was also no visible trend for more thinning with increasing concentration. Target fruit weights (Table 2) were achieved by the handthin and CyLex treatments. Neither Accel or C/T improved fruit weight over ethephon. Although the Accel treatments achieved similar thinning levels to the hand-thin treatment, fruit weight was reduced. All treatments with the exception of ethephon alone improved the percentage of fruit 80 mm diameter (Table 2)

compared with the control. Accel and C/T showed similar fruit size results, while CyLex further improved fruit size over both. The CyLex treatments were the only treatments to approach or achieve the target percentages with respect to number of fruit greater than or equal to 80 mm diameter. The only treatments to show an increase in pygmy fruit (40 mm diameter) over the controls were the Accel treatments. Ethephon alone had no effect on fruit soluble solids (Table 3). All C/T, CyLex and Accel treatments increased soluble solids compared with the ethephon treatment. Fruit stored for 6 months showed the same trends (Table 4). Most CyLex treated fruit at harvest and CyLex and Accel treated fruit after storage were higher in soluble solids than C/T treated fruit. Fruit rmness (esh pressure) (Table 3) was increased by all Accel treatments compared with the control. However, when

Table 3 The effect of two formulations of 6-benzyladenine (CyLex and Accel) and carbaryl/thiram (C/T) tank mix on fruit quality of Fuji apples Treatment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Control Hand-thin 200 mg/L ethephon at FB (E) E + C/T 18 dAFB E + C/T 18, 25 dAFB E + C/T 18, 25, 32 dAFB E + 125 mg/L CyLex E + 150 mg/L CyLex E + 175 mg/L CyLex E + 200 mg/L CyLex E + 125 mg/L Accel E + 150 mg/L Accel E + 175 mg/L Accel E + 200 mg/L Accel LSD ( p = 0.05) Soluble solids (Brix8) 12.9 13.1 12.8 13.6 14.0 14.0 15.0 14.9 15.3 14.6 14.5 14.4 14.5 13.9 0.7 ab ab a bc cd cd ef ef f def de de de cd Flesh rmness (kgf) 7.89 7.52 7.58 8.33 8.43 7.83 8.29 7.83 8.51 8.31 8.54 8.81 8.65 9.60 0.64 abc a a bcd bcd ab bcd a ed cd d d d e Number viable seeds 7.5 7.3 7.2 7.0 6.3 7.1 5.6 5.1 5.1 5.6 5.7 5.0 5.4 5.4 0.6 d d d d c d ab ab ab ab b a ab ab Length/diameter ratio 0.872 0.883 0.858 0.874 0.853 0.852 0.863 0.874 0.860 0.852 0.862 0.855 0.856 0.864 0.011 def f abc ef ab a abcde ef abc a abcd abc abc bcde

CyLex and Accel applied 20 days after full bloom (dAFB); C/T = 1000 mg/L carbaryl and 1200 mg/L thiram tank mix.

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Table 4 The effect of two formulations of 6-benzyladenine (CyLex and Accel) and carbaryl/thiram (C/T) tank mix on fruit storage quality and return bloom of Fuji apples Treatment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Control Hand-thin 200 mg/L ethephon at FB (E) E + C/T 18 dAFB E + C/T 18, 25 dAFB E + C/T 18, 25, 32 dAFB E + 125 mg/L CyLex E + 150 mg/L CyLex E + 175 mg/L CyLex E + 200 mg/L CyLex E + 125 mg/L Accel E + 150 mg/L Accel E + 175 mg/L Accel E + 200 mg/L Accel LSD ( p = 0.05) Soluble solids (Brix8) (after storage) 11.9 12.5 12.2 12.9 13.1 13.3 13.7 14.2 14.3 13.6 13.6 13.8 14.2 13.2 0.1 a c b d e f gh I I g g h I ef Flesh rmness (after storage) (kgf) 5.79 5.85 5.88 6.04 5.94 5.89 6.62 6.53 6.83 6.42 6.44 6.24 6.33 6.26 0.24 a ab ab bc ab ab fg ef g def def cd de cd Return bloom (no fruit/cm2 TCSA) 5.42 7.68 5.75 10.58 7.38 8.73 12.61 13.40 13.71 12.28 9.53 11.35 8.85 9.96 3.89 a abcd ab cdefg abc abcde ef fg g e bcdef defg abcde cdefg

CyLex and Accel applied 20 days after full bloom (dAFB); C/T = 1000 mg/L carbaryl and 1200 mg/L thiram tank mix; TCSA = trunk cross-sectional area.

compared with ethephon alone, all Accel treatments, the 125, 175 and 200 mg/L CyLex and single and double C/T treatments increased fruit rmness. After storage, all the CyLex and Accel treated fruit showed an increase in fruit rmness (Table 4) over the control, hand-thin, ethephon alone and C/T treatments. Seed numbers (Table 3) were lower in all CyLex and Accel and the double C/T treatments compared with the control, handthin and ethephon alone treatments. Ethephon had no effect on seed numbers. There was no difference in seed numbers between the CyLex and Accel treatments. Compared with the control, fruit L/D ratios were decreased by all treatments with the exception of the hand-thin, single C/T, 125 and 150 mg/L CyLex, and 125 and 200 mg/L Accel treatments. Compared with ethephon alone, the single C/T and the 150 mg/L CyLex treatments increased L/D ratio.

Return bloom (Table 4) was signicantly increased by all the CyLex, all the Accel except the 175 mg/L and the single C/T treatments. 3.2. Delicious There were slight differences between the results for the two crop load variables (Table 5). However, both were in agreement that Accel had no thinning effect. The only treatment to reduce the number of fruit per 100 blossom clusters more than the control was the hand-thin treatment. The number of fruit per cm2 TCSA data showed the hand-thin and single and triple C/T applications thinned more than the control, however the crop load on these treatments was still well above the desired target levels. The only treatment to increase fruit weight (Table 5) was the hand-thin treatment. The fruit size gures show that all

Table 5 The effect of Accel (BA + GA4+7) and carbaryl/thiram (C/T) tank mix on crop load, fruit weight and fruit size on Delicious apples Treatment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Control Hand-thin 80 mg/L ethephon at FB (E) E + 150 mg/L Accel 25 mg/L Cytolin at KP + ethephon at FB (CE) CE + C/T 18 dAFB CE + C/T 18, 25 dAFB CE + C/T 18, 25, 32 dAFB CE + 125 mg/L Accel CE + 150 mg/L Accel CE + 175 mg/L Accel CE + 200 mg/L Accel LSD ( p = 0.05) Targets No. of fruit per 100 blossom clusters 105 53 114 124 108 85 92 98 111 116 119 87bc 28 4060 bcde a cde e bcde b bcd bcde bcde de de No. of fruit per cm2 TCSA 17.57 7.28 15.44 17.77 14.24 12.06 13.41 11.81 16.51 14.63 17.92 12.85 5.01 24 cd a bcd cd bcd ab bcd ab bcd bcd d bc Mean fruit weight (g) 82 142 91 92 87 95 92 99 84 88 86 92 18 150 a b a a a a a a a a a a Fruit 70 mm diameter (%) a 0.4 4.2 1.7 2.0 0.8 1.7 1.7 2.3 1.8 2.1 2.1 2.0 1.0 (60) a (0.7) d (65.1) bc (6.9) c (8.6) abc (1.3) bc (7.1) bc (7.8) c (9.8) b (9.9) c (9.0) c (8.7) c (8.7) Pygmy fruit less than 30 mm (%)b 0.71 0.71 0.73 1.52 0.71 0.71 0.71 0.71 1.09 0.97 1.94 2.00 0.50 (0) a (0.0) a (0.0) a (0.2) bc (2.3) a (0.0) a (0.0) a (0.0) a (0.0) ab (0.8) a (0.6) c (3.5) c (4.0)

Accel applied 20 days after full bloom (dAFB); C/T = 1000 mg/L carbaryl and 1200 mg/L thiram tank mix; TCSA: trunk cross-sectional area. a Log transformed (gures in parentheses are actual percentages). b Squareroot transformed (gures in parentheses are actual percentages).

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Table 6 The effect of Accel (BA + GA4+7) and carbaryl/thiram (C/T) tank mix on fruit quality of Delicious apples Treatment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Control Hand-thin 80 mg/L ethephon at FB (E) E + 150 mg/L Accel 20 dAFB 25 mg/L Cytolin at KP + ethephon at FB (CE) CE + C/T 18 dAFB CE + C/T 18, 25 dAFB CE + C/T 18, 25, 32 dAFB CE + 125 mg/L Accel CE + 150 mg/L Accel CE + 175 mg/L Accel CE + 200 mg/L Accel LSD ( p = 0.05) Soluble solids (Brix8) 12.3 12.8 12.5 12.3 12.8 12.6 12.6 12.4 12.5 12.8 12.4 12.8 n.s. Flesh rmness (kg) 7.74 7.33 7.24 7.55 7.82 7.12 7.13 7.57 8.13 8.01 8.29 7.93 0.43 cd abc ab abcd de a a bcd ef ef f def Number viable seeds 6.3 6.5 5.8 4.3 6.5 5.3 5.5 4.8 5.3 3.4 3.1 2.4 0.6 f f e c f de e cd de b b a Length/diameter ratio 0.898 0.823 0.873 0.875 0.886 0.884 0.888 0.885 0.872 0.892 0.902 0.880 0.013 fg a bc bcd cdef bcde def bcdef be efg g bcde

Accel applied 20 days after full bloom (dAFB); C/T = 1000 mg/L carbaryl and 1200 mg/L thiram tank mix.

treatments with the exception of treatment 5 (Cytolin + ethephon) were better than the control. However, the hand-thin treatment was the only treatment which gave better fruit size than the ethephon treatment, ie. neither C/T nor Accel improved fruit size. Pygmy fruit was produced by treatments 4, 11 and 12all Accel treatments. There was no effect on fruit soluble solids (Table 6). Fruit rmness was decreased by ethephon compared with the control. The addition of Cytolin to the program (treatment 5) increased fruit rmness back to the level observed in the control. Most Accel treatments increased fruit rmness over and above the control. All Accel and C/T treatments caused a reduction in seed numbers (Table 6). There was also a corresponding decrease with increasing concentration of Accel. Ethephon and hand-thinning caused a reduction in fruit L/D ratios (Table 6). Cytolin reversed this decrease (treatment 5). The only treatment to improve L/D ratios over that achieved by Cytolin + ethephon was the treatment including 175 mg/L Accel. 3.3. Golden Delicious Compared with the control all treatments had some thinning effect on the number of fruit per 100 blossom clusters (Table 7),

with the exception of NAA alone. However, the only treatment to achieve near target levels was the hand-thin treatment. The double and triple C/T treatments thinned more than NAA alone. Accel showed no improvement over NAA. All treatments resulted in a decrease in number of fruit per cm2 TCSA (Table 7) compared with the control, however only the hand-thin treatment achieved thinning levels near to the targets. While all Accel and C/T treatments resulted in some additional thinning over NAA alone, thinning was still not sufcient to produce results approaching target levels. Fruit size results were confounded by the fact that all trees were hand-thinned in January to prevent tree damage from breaking limbs. However, both mean fruit weight and the percentage of fruit 70 mm diameter or larger (Table 7) follow the crop load pattern, ie. as long as there was some thinning there was an improvement in fruit weight and size. Accel did not improve fruit weight or size when compared with C/T. There was no treatment effect on fruit soluble solids (Table 8). NAA had no effect on fruit rmness compared with the control, but the 200 mg/L Accel treatment increased fruit rmness. NAA had no effect on seed numbers. Seed numbers were decreased by the hand-thin, Accel and the double and triple C/T treatments, although the effect was not as marked as

Table 7 The effect of Accel (BA + GA4+7) and carbaryl/thiram (C/T) tank mix on crop load, fruit weight and fruit size on Golden Delicious apples Treatment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Control Hand-thin 7 mg/L NAA at FB and 5 dAFB NAA + 100 mg/L Accel NAA + 150 mg/L Accel NAA + 200 mg/L Accel NAA + C/T 18 dAFB NAA + C/T 18 and 25 dAFB NAA + C/T 18, 25 and 32 dAFB LSD ( p = 0.05) Targets No. of fruit per 100 blossom clusters 208 76 176 138 141 139 147 133 124 40 3050 d a cd bc bc bc bc b b No. of fruit per cm2 TCSA 17.17 5.07 13.65 10.29 9.71 8.52 9.84 9.92 8.52 2.38 24 d a c b b b b b b Mean fruit weight (g) 127 172 125 146 145 144 138 148 156 14 150 a c a b b b a b b Fruit 70 mm diameter (%) 42 84 39 61 63 69 58 65 70 15 80 a c a b b bc b b bc

Accel applied 20 days after full bloom (dAFB); NAA: naphthalene acetic acid; C/T: 1000 mg/L carbaryl and 1200 mg/L thiram tank mix; TCSA: trunk cross-sectional area.

S.A. Bound / Scientia Horticulturae 111 (2006) 3037 Table 8 The effect of Accel (BA + GA4+7) and carbaryl/thiram (C/T) tank mix on fruit quality of Golden Delicious apples Treatment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Control Hand-thin 7 mg/L NAA at FB and 5 dAFB NAA + 100 mg/L Accel NAA + 150 mg/L Accel NAA + 200 mg/L Accel NAA + C/T 18 dAFB NAA + C/T 18 and 25 dAFB NAA + C/T 18, 25 and 32 dAFB LSD ( p = 0.05) Soluble solids (Brix8) 12.6 12.7 12.6 12.8 13.3 12.9 13.2 12.9 13.3 n.s. Flesh rmness (kg) 5.66 5.36 5.87 5.68 5.86 6.34 5.57 5.66 5.49 0.25 bc a c bc c d ab bc ab Number viable seeds 8.2 7.4 8.3 6.7 6.5 5.1 7.8 7.2 7.4 0.6 d c d b b a cd c c

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Length/diameter ratio 0.927 0.922 0.904 0.906 0.927 0.927 0.916 0.909 0.914 0.011 c c a ab c c bc ab ab

Accel applied 20 days after full bloom (dAFB); NAA: naphthalene acetic acid; C/T = 1000 mg/L carbaryl and 1200 mg/L thiram tank mix.

in Delicious. NAA reduced fruit L/D ratios. The 150 and 200 mg/L Accel treatments had ratios similar to the control. 4. Discussion These trials, in conjunction with other Australian studies on BA (Bound et al., 1991, 1993a, 1997) demonstrate that the CyLex formulation of BA is a reliable, consistent thinner. The increase in the level of thinning, to the point of over thinning, with higher concentrations agrees with the ndings of Miller and Greene (1986), Elfving (1989), Greene et al. (1990) and conrms earlier work by Bound et al. (1991, 1993a). While CyLex effectively thinned Fuji, Accel had no additional thinning effect over the standard thinning regimes on either Fuji, Delicious or Golden Delicious with no increases in fruit weight or size. With chemicals such as BA and carbaryl, both phenological stage and temperature during application have previously been shown to be important (Bound et al., 1993a, 1997; Jones et al., 1998). In this work temperature was above the minimum recommended by Bound et al. (1997) for both CyLex and Accel, and application timing was in the recommended range of 1020 dAFB for Delicious and Golden Delicious as previously recommended by Bound et al. (1997) and 1923 dAFB for Fuji (Bound et al., 1991, 1993a). As the CyLex and Accel treatments in the Fuji trial were applied within 30 min of each other, it can be concluded that application timing and temperature conditions did not affect the thinning efcacy of these two formulations of BA. Looney (2000) reported that the Accel formulation of BA was largely without effect as a fruitlet thinner, and Embree et al. (2001) also found that a BA/GA4+7 combination was ineffective as a thinner. The results of this study conrm the suggestion by Schupp (2004) that the addition of GA4+7 to the formulation interferes with the ability of BA to act as a thinner. Although the mode of action of BA is not fully known, there have been several mechanisms proposed to explain the action of chemical thinners. One suggestion is that it stimulates ethylene biosynthesis, however Greene et al. (1992) reported that while ethylene production in both leaves and fruit increased linearly with increasing BA concentration, the magnitude of this increase was not considered large enough to be the primary cause of thinning. Another suggested mode of action is

inhibition of photosynthesis. Yuan and Greene (2000) reported a reduction of 1015% in photosynthesis and an increase in dark respiration at higher temperatures (30 8C) but not lower (20 8C) after application of BA. Another possible explanation is that thinning chemicals interfere with endogenous hormones which control the ow of nutrients to the developing fruit. According to Ouma and Matta (2002), fruit abscission will be increased by chemical stress of any kind. They also state that although embryo abortion may occur before or simulataneously with fruit abscission, it is not regarded as the cause of abscission. It is probable that the thinning action of BA involves more than one of the mechanisms described, with the most likely being ethylene biosynthesis combined with blocking of transport of nutrients to the fruit. The production of pygmy fruit in the Accel treatments in all three cultivars studied in this work is undesirable. Pygmy fruit production has not been reported in previous work with BA formulations that do not contain GA4+7. However, Greene and Autio (1994) noted that Accel interacts with NAA on Delicious to produce small and pygmy fruit. This study extends this knowledge to include ethephon as the primary thinner of both Fuji and Delicious where Accel produced pygmy fruit, but CyLex and C/T did not. This may be the result of an interaction with ethephon, but as previous work by Bound et al. (1993b) found no negative interactions between Cytolin (a 50:50 mix of BA and GA4+7) and ethephon, this is unlikely. The production of pymy fruit is most likely directly attributable to Accel itself. While Accel increased fruit rmness and soluble solids in Fuji fruit, it had no effect on fruit of Delicious or Golden Delicious. The increase in both fruit rmness and soluble solids by CyLex in this work is supported by earlier work by Bound et al. (unpublished data), who found that BA increased fruit rmness and soluble solids in Delicious and Golden Delicious. This also agrees with Greene and Miller (1984), Miller and Greene (1986) and Greene and Autio (1989), who all demonstrated increases in rmness and soluble solids with BA application. Fruit rmness was maintained during storage in both CyLex and Accel treated fruit. This work on Fuji agrees with Elfving and Lougheed (1994) and indicates there are no adverse effects on fruit quality at either harvest or after air storage as a result of thinning with CyLex. Wismer et al. (1995)

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S.A. Bound / Scientia Horticulturae 111 (2006) 3037

demonstrated that BA did not alter fruit cell diameter, but rather resulted in increased cell numbers in the fruit cortex, whereas in NAA or carbaryl treated fruit the fruit size increase is a result of larger cell size. This nding helps to explain why BA treated fruit is often rmer. While Greene and Lord (1985) found that BA combined with equal amounts of gibberellins (GA4+7) did not affect seed numbers, in this work Accel reduced seed numbers in all three cultivars. The effect of BA on seed numbers appears to be related to both time of application and cultivar. McArtney et al. (1995) reported that early BA treatments had only a minor effect on seed numbers compared with late applications which halved seed numbers in some varieties. Biltonen et al. (1991) and McArtney et al. (1995) have observed varying effects of BA on seed numbers in different cultivars. Accel had no effect on fruit shape, represented by L/D ratio in either Fuji or Delicious, however in Golden Delicious it appears to have counteracted the fruit attening caused by NAA. Although Miller and Greene (1986), Elfving (1989), Greene et al. (1990) and Elfving and Cline (1993) found that BA increased L/D ratios of Idared, Hi-Early Delicious and Empire respectively, this work shows no effect on Fuji. This agrees with earlier work by Bound et al. (1991). Return bloom in this trial was increased consistently in Fuji by application of BA, regardless of concentration. While this result disagrees with the ndings of Miller and Greene (1986) and Greene and Autio (1989), who found that return bloom increased linearly with increasing concentration of BA, it is in agreement with work by Elfving (1989) and Bound et al. (1991). 5. Conclusions Although the Accel treatments achieved similar thinning levels in Fuji to the hand-thin treatment, they did not result in a corresponding increase in mean fruit weight. Accel has shown no improvement over C/T in either thinning or effects on fruit size, nor does it thin Fuji as well as CyLex or show any improvement in fruit size. Accel is also an ineffective thinner of Delicious and Golden Delicious. Although not achieving target levels of thinning, C/T was more effective than Accel. Neither C/T nor Accel improved fruit size. The results of this work demonstrate that Accel is an ineffective thinner under Australian conditions, its efcacy having been assessed on three cultivars. The original formulation of BA (ABG3062), now registered as CyLex in Australia, has been shown to be an effective and consistent thinner of the difcult to thin cultivar Fuji. BA has also proved to be a more efcient thinner of Fuji than the carbaryl/thiram combination. The recommended thinning program for Fuji would be ethephon at full bloom followed by 125150 mg/L CyLex as a post-bloom thinner. Acknowledgements This work was jointly funded by Abbott Laboratories and the Horticultural Research & Development Corporation. The

BA formulations [CyLex (ABG3062) and Accel (ABG3164)] were donated by Abbott Laboratories. The technical support of Mr. David Jennings is gratefully acknowledged. References
Biltonen, M., Robinson, T., Stiles, W., 1991. Effect of 6-benzylamino purine on relative growth rate, seed count and ethylene production of Empire apple fruit. HortScience 26, 758. Bound, S.A., Jones, K.M., Oakford, M.J., 1997. Post-bloom thinning with 6benzyladenine. Acta Hortic. 463, 493499. Bound, S.A., Jones, K.M., Graham, B., Oakford, M.J., Tichon, M., 1993a. Modelling the effects of timing and rates of application of benzyladenine as a secondary thinner of Fuji apple after ethephon. J. Hortic. Sci. 69, 967 973. Bound, S.A., Jones, K.M., Oakford, M.J., Tichon, M., 1993b. Assessing interactive effects between Cytolin and ethephon on cropping red Delicious. J. Hortic. Sci. 68, 209213. Bound, S.A., Jones, K.M., Koen, T.B., Oakford, M.J., 1991. The thinning effect of benzyladenine on red Fuji apple trees. J. Hortic. Sci. 66, 789 794. Costa, G., Bonany, J., Carbo, J., Casala, M., Stopar, M., Lafer, G., Dorigoni, A., Vizzotto, G., Bomben, C., 2004. Multilocation analysis of ATS and BA thinning efcacy on Golden delicious. Acta Hortic. 636, 303313. Dorigini, A., Comai, M., Dallabetta, N., Piffer, I., Angeli, D., 2003. Bezyladenine: a new thinner for apple to supplement those already in use. Rivista di Frutticoltura e di Ortooricoltura 65, 6975. Elfving, D.C., Cline, R.A., 1993. Cytokinin and ethephon affect crop load, shoot growth, and nutrient concentration of Empire apple trees. HortScience 28, 10111014. Elfving, D.C., 1989. N-(phenylmethyl)-1H-purine-6-amine (BA) as a chemical thinner for Idared apple. Acta Hortic. 239, 357362. Elfving, D.C., 1994. Benzyladenine: chemical thinner for the Northwest. Good Fruit Grower 45, 4748. Elfving, D.C., Lougheed, E.C., 1994. Storage responses of Empire apples to benzyladenine and other chemical thinners. J. Am. Soc. Hortic. Sci. 119, 253257. Embree, C.G., Nichols, D.S., DeLong, J.M., Prange, R.K., 2001. Certain chemical thinning treatments advance maturity of Paula Red apple. Can. J. Plant Sci. 81, 499501. Greene, D.W., Autio, W.R., 1989. Evaluation of benzyladenine as a chemical thinner on McIntosh apples. J. Am. Soc. Hortic. Sci. 114, 6873. Greene, D.W., Autio, W.R., 1994. Suggestions for use of the new postbloom thinner Accel. Fruit Notes Spring 1994, 1820. Greene, D.W., Autio, W.R., Erf, J.A., Mao, Z.Y., 1992. Mode of action of benzyladenine when used as a chemical thinner on apples. J. Am. Soc. Hortic. Sci. 117, 775779. Greene, D.W., Lord, W.J., 1985. Effect of chemical thinners on Delicious apple trees previously sprayed with GA4+7 + BA. HortScience 20, 8486. Greene, D.W., Miller, P., 1984. Uses of 6-benzyladenine as a chemical thinner for apples. HortScience 19, 52. Greene, D.W., Autio, W.R., Miller, P., 1990. Thinning activity of benzyladenine on several apple cultivars. J. Am. Soc. Hortic. Sci. 115, 394400. Jones, K.M., Bound, S.A., Koen, T.B., Oakford, M.J., 1992. Effect of timing of hand thinning on the cropping potential of red Fuji apple trees. Aust. J. Exp. Agric. 32, 417420. Jones, K.M., Koen, T.B., Meredith, R.J., 1983. Thinning Golden Delicious apples using ethephon sprays. J. Hort. Sci. 58, 381388. Jones, K.M., Koen, T.B., Longley, S.B., Oakford, M.J., 1988. Thinning Golden Delicious apples with naphthalene acetic acid in relation to spray concentration, volume and time of day. J. Hort. Sci. 63, 2730. Jones, K., Bound, S., Miller, P., 1998. Crop regulation of pome fruit in Australia. Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research, Hobart, ISBN 1-86295-027X. Koen, T.B., Jones, K.M., Longley, S.B., 1988. Spray thinning strategies for Red Delicious apple using naphthalene acetic acid and ethephon. J. Hortic. Sci. 63, 3135.

S.A. Bound / Scientia Horticulturae 111 (2006) 3037 Looney, N.E., 1986. Chemical thinning of apple: some new strategies and important renements to old procedures. Acta Hortic. 179, 597604. Looney, N.E., 2000. Some effects of carbaryl on the growth and development of apple leaves: a possible mechanism for fruitlet thinning. Acta Hortic. 527, 127136. McArtney, S.J., Tustin, D.S., Seymour, S., Cashmore, W., Looney, N.E., 1995. Benzyladenine and C/T effects on fruit thinning and the enhancement of return owering of three apple cultivars. J. Hortic. Sci. 70, 287296. Meier, U. (Ed.), 2001. Growth stages of mono- and dicotyledonous plants, BBCH Monograph. Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry. Downloaded 23 May 2006. http://www.bba.de/veroeff/bbch/ bbcheng.pdf. Miller, P., Greene, D., 1986. Uses of 6-benzyladenine for apple thinning. Knoxeld Biennial Report, p 11. Ouma, G., Matta, F., 2002. Responses of several apple cultivars to chemical thinning sprays. J. Food Technol. Afr. 7, 1620.

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Schupp, J., 2004. MaxCel, a new 6BA thinner for apple. Facts Fancy Fruit 2, 1 2. Steel, R.G.D., Torrie, J.H., 1980. Principles and Procedures of Statistics: a Biometrical Approach, 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill, New York. Thistlewood, H.M.A., Elfving, D.C., 1992. Laboratory and eld effects of chemical fruit thinners on Tetranychid and predatory mites (Acari) of apple. J. Econ. Entomol. 85, 477485. Tichon, M., Bound, S., Jones, K., 1996. CyLexTM Plant Growth Regulator Australian trial results. Abbott Laboratories 9. Wismer, P.T., Proctor, J.T.A., Elfving, D.C., 1995. Benzyladenine affects cell division and cell size during apple fruit thinning. J. Amer. Soc. Hortic. Sci. 120 802807, 1096. Yuan, R., Greene, D.W., 2000. Benzyladenine as a chemical thinner for McIntosh apples. Part I. Fruit thinning effects and associated relationships with photosynthesis, assimilate translocation, and nonstructural carbohydrates. J. Am. Soc. Hortic. Sci. 125, 169176.