Influence of the pruning to different heights in papaya tree ‘Golden’

Abstract

The papaya tree (Carica papaya L.) is a plant of difficult use in the vegetative propagation because the species presents strong apical dominance and low production of lateral shoots. This work was accomplished in the commercial area of the farm AGRICULTURAL CALIMAN S/A, at Linhares - ES, and aimed to study the effect of the pruning in different heights of the trunk in plants of papaya tree ‘Golden’, with two and a half years of age, at the of the productive period. The treatments consisted of five pruning heights (complete without the apex, 0.5; 1.0; 1.5; 2.0 m) starting from the ground, with the experimental plots consisting of five plants. The appraised characteristics were: shoots number to the 25 days and the 50 days after the pruning; length of the sprouts longer than 5 cm at 50 days after the pruning; and distribution of the shoots in the height of the trunk to the 50 days. The pruning of the stem at 2.0 m of height provided the best results in all of the appraised characteristics.