Canopy Management for Sustainable Fruit Production

The crux of canopy management in fruit trees is to ensure efficient use of land and the climatic factors in favour of fruit yield and quality. The primary objective emphasizes on reduction in excessive canopy shading and manage tree size and height for better light interception. A well-managed tree canopies permits better aeration and sunlight exposure to foliage, fruits, improve the photosynthetic efficiency, fruit bud differentiation, fruit set, growth and quality vis-a-vis reduced microclimate buildup for pests and disease. Canopy architecture management plays a vital role in improving the production efficiency of senile as well as high density orchards as light capturing and conversion efficiency in small trees are better than large trees. While managing tree architecture, the diurnal variation in solar elevation, leaf position in the canopy and degree of leaf clumping, tree architectural behavior, nature of vegetative and reproductive growth and training and pruning are essentially kept in mind as these factors influence the overall tree physiology, photosynthetic performance, flowering and fruit yield. An unmanaged tree canopy induces excess and reduces fruit mass and fruit quality attributes. Light interception is low when the orchard is planted and increases as the orchard develops in relation to total leaf area index. Hence, practices that increase light exposure of the canopy as well as light distribution within the canopy calls for optimization of tree shape, standardization of planting distances and training procedures and a sound knowledge of the response of trees to training methods, specifically shoot orientation and pruning.