During the current cherry season, the Avium technical team has detected a significant abortion of fruits in the field, perhaps greater than in other years; however, it is necessary to clarify when we can really speak of abortion or pasma, and when it is another phenomenon, very common, for example, in the Regina variety.
Fruit set or lack of fruit set in cherries is revealed within the first 25 days after full blossom. That is, any fruit that prospers after those 25 days simply did not set. However, this is often confused with abortion or failure, but in practice these are completely different phenomena.
When can we talk about abortion or stagnation? After 25-30 days of full bloom, when the fruit has already formed and subsequently falls off, we are talking about stagnation; this situation generally responds to a reason, which always has to do with competition, mainly, from sugars and carbohydrates.
An over-loaded tree, for example, will clearly try to abort more fruit due to a natural regulation and competition for sugars. On the other hand, there is excess vigor, since clearly the most vigorous trees will produce more fruit, because the tree is consuming much more sugar than a less vigorous one.
In a year like this, many producers and the Avium technical team detected in the field a greater presence of pasma or fruit abortion, which according to the Founder and Technical Director of Avium, Carlos Tapia, has to do with the flow of carbohydrates that this fruit has to be retained in the plant.
“I make the following analysis: we had good hours of cold and in many cases, dormancy-breaking strategies were used very early to come out earlier. When we have plenty of hours of cold or a good quality of cold, naturally the trees wake up early; we had flowering in Santina on September 12, September 14, which is super strange because Santina, under normal conditions and even in warm areas, are flowering from September 20-25. That is, this year we saw flowering ten days earlier; they bloomed at a good time, the weather helped us a little, they set well, but after setting we all know that the temperatures did not help us and that began to slow down the system and we were getting closer to the dates of last year, that is, today we all recognize that we are not in an early year.”
The specialist advisor on cherry production also points out that temperatures also have an effect on the generation of sugars that allow the fruit to be preserved.
“The explanation is very simple, it flowered early, used up all its reserves, set, set well, the temperatures were not in our favor to generate sugars via photosynthesis metabolism and the plant began to run out of “gasoline.” And, in one way or another, due to lack of carbohydrates and competition from carbohydrates, the fruit falls. And that makes a lot of sense to me that it happens in the earliest areas, where we flowered earlier and where the temperatures have not been in our favor. This does not happen as much in the middle areas or the later areas, because as they flowered later, higher temperatures are reached to improve the processes,” explained Carlos Tapia.
The weather conditions in spring have been unstable, including rain and hail, as well as low maximum temperatures until mid-October, which impacted different aspects of the cherry season, in addition to generating certain conditions more conducive to the occurrence of abortion or panic attacks.
It is always important to carefully observe what is happening in each orchard, taking into account variety, geographic location, agronomic management, etc. In this way, it is possible to analyze with greater precision the abortion or stagnation situation that occurred in each case this season.
It should be noted that many times in this type of event, attention is drawn to the problem rather than the benefit, and we stop seeing what really matters, which in this case is the final load.
Today we draw conclusions that in many cases, this police force was essential in adjusting loads, and in cases where this was not the case, it should be taken into account for future management.
