Vegetative and productive behavior of kiwifruit ‘Elmwood’ submitted to pruning with different bud loading levels

Abstract The objective of this study is to evaluate the vegetative and productive behavior of kiwifruit trees cv. ‘Elmwood’ submitted to different intensities of pruning, in “Serra Gaúcha” region. Treatments consisted in maintaining different bud load levels in each cane of 10, 15 and 20 buds cane-1. The experiment, carried out during the 2016/2017 vegetative season had a completely randomized design with nine repetitions per treatment. Bud fertility, vegetative, productive and fruit quality features were evaluated. The percentage of mixed buds was higher next to the cane apex in three different treatments, while in the base of each cane ocurred the highest percentage of non sprouting buds. The decrease in the number of buds per cane induced larger leaves and increased leaf dry matter. Longitudinal and transversal diameter of fruits and fruit mass were inversely proportional to the number of buds per cane. Pruning of ‘Elmwood’ kiwifruit tree with different number of buds did not influence the index of real bud fertility, but affected directly leaf and shoot size. Pruning maintaining canes with 10 buds favors the increase of fruit weight and did not reduce productivity.