COLUMNAR APPLE VARIETIES GROWN IN A CANOPY OF A WINTER-HARDY SKELETOGENOUS TREE
The new planting system has been tested by planting two-year skeletogenous seedlings at the space of 3 x 2m (1 600 seedlings per ha), 3 x 1,5m (2 200 seedlings per ha) and 3 x 1,0 m (3 300 seedlings per ha) with the following grafting of all lateral branches and skeletogeny conductor. It is possible to grow from 8 000.10 000 to 15 000.20 000 vertical branches of a columnar variety per 1 ha. "Priokskoye" and "Poezia" have shown themselves as the best columnar varieties. Winter-hardy semi-dwarf rootstock 3-4-98 is a good skeletogenous tree. Such planting system allows to use the typical mechanization in orchard cultivation and to obtain marketable apple yield 3.4 years past the grafting.