The objective of this work was to evaluate the behavior of three peach cultivars in relation to budbreak in branches with or without tipping off pruning submitted to different exposition cold periods. One-year-old branches of Coral, Eragil and Rubidoux peach trees cultivars were submitted to chilling supplement (0, 312, 624 and 1248 cold units). After chilling treatments, half of branches were maintained intact and others were tipped off pruning through terminal bud remove. After this, the branches were kept in growth chamber at 25ºC, and it was evaluated the percentage of budbreak in flower and vegetative buds at 15 and 30 days after the beginning of the exposure at 25ºC. Tipping off pruning increased budbreak in vegetative buds in all cultivars studied. The effect of tipping off pruning on budbreak in vegetative buds was variable depending on chilling intensity that the branches were submitted, being evidenced bigger effect of tipping off pruning in higher chilling exposure.
apical dominance; dormancy; Prunus persica (L.) Batsch; chilling requirement
