EFFECT OF BUD LOAD ON BUD BEHAVIOUR AND FRUIT QUALITY OF INTRODUCED MILISSA CULTIVAR

This study was carried out during the two successive seasons, 2004 and 2005
in an attempt to find out the optimum number of buds to be left on vines of the newly
introduced Melissa Seedless grape cuitivar which realizes to get the highest possible
yield with the best fruit quality. 5 Year-old-uniformed vines were chosen and pruned to
6 different levels of bud load, 84, 98, 112, 126,140,154 budsfvine. 14 buds per cane
leaving fixed for all treatments.
The results showed that increasing bud loadlvine resulted in an increase in the
number of buncheslvine, yield/vine and acidity of the juice. On the other hand,
percentage of bursted buds, fertility and bunch weight, berry weight, siZe, length and
diameter, wood ripening coefficient, weight of prunings, cane carbohydrate content.
T.S.S and T.S.Sfacid ratio were found to decrease as the bud load was increased.
Berry shape index and compactness coefficient were unaffected. The optimum
number of budsfvine to be left at pruning time for Melissa Seedless Cv. ranged
between 112, 126 budsfvine.