S. PANDELIEV and L. ANGELOV
Agricultural University, Department of Viticulture, BG - 4000 Plovdiv, Bulgaria
PANDELIEV, S. and L. ANGELOV, 2005. Study on the yield and quality of the grape cv. Tempranillo depending on loading with winter buds. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 11: 289-301
In the period 2003-2004 on the Experimental-and-Introduction site of the Agricultural University - Plovdiv a study was carried out for establishing the effect of loading the vines of Tempranillo cv. on the grape yield and quality. It was found out that the increase of the loading in the third year of training led to the increase of the yield, however, when the buds were more than 14 per vine, the grape quality worsened. Sugar content decreased and the titric acids were preserved in a bigger amount. When further increasing the loading in the fourth year from 14 to 19 buds the yield also increased, the good quality being maintained (22.6 % of sugars and 6.30 g/dm3 of titric acids), after which the grape quality was deteriorated. During the period of training and initial fruiting, most promising seemed to be the loading with 11 to 19 buds per vine in the third year and with 14 to 23 buds per vine in the fourth year. Those rates of loading the vines with winter buds under the conditions of the Rhodope mountain foothills contributed to the provision of a comparatively high grape yield (about 1268.80 kg/dka and 1098.24 kg/dka in average) at the initial stage of the development of the plants, without weakening their growth and at maintaining the comparatively good quality of the grapes.