GIRDLING FRUIT TREES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 437, 7 February 1912, Page 6

GIRDLING FRUIT TREES.

The cincturing of currant vines has been a practice of grape growers, who found the cutting of a ring, or "ringing" the vine with a wire tended to improve the yield. An American experimenter has tried the process on stoned fruit trees, and he writes:—"Last winter I girdled limbs on several apricot, plum, and peach trees, and in the case of the Admiral Dewey Elberta with marked success. Except a few scattered peaches the only crop borne on those varieties was on the girdled limbs, the May freeze having caused the fruit to shed. The Dewey peaches were not only about as large as ordinary Elberta, but ripened about ten days before the few others that remained on the tree. The girdled Elberta limb was loaded with fine fruit, larger in size than the average, while there were only three peaches on the ungirdled limbs. The experiment was not so favourable on plums and apricots, the trees seeming to favour the ungirdled limbs, a strong indication that the entire tree should be treated, and low down on the body. But from the Dewey and Elberta experimnest itwould seem that removing a circle of about one quarter of an inch of bark in some way affected the flow of sap and prevented the fruit from shedding. The bark on both trees closed to the gaps in a few months, and without injury to the limbs.