Published in Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture, Vol. LXVIV, Issue 2
Written by Vanya AKOVA, Irina STANEVA, Lilyana NACHEVA, Nataliya DIMITROVA, Angel DIMITROV, Plamen IVANOV, Stefan GANDEV

The study was conducted at the Fruit Growing Institute in Plovdiv to establish the influence of different fertilizer rates on the growth, nutritional and physiological status of apple plants of the Florina cultivar, grafted on M9 rootstock, grown in containers (10 l). Variants of the experiment are Variant I - Control (not fertilized), Variant II - N_1.3P_0.3K_0.7Mg_0.1, Variant III - N_2.7P_0.7K_1.3Mg_0.3 and Variant IV - N_4.3P_1.1K_2.1Mg_0.4. In fertilized variants, plants with a height of 144.11 to 152.14 cm and a stem diameter of 9.63 to 10.09 mm were obtained. The plants of the control variant reached average values for height of 92.38 cm and 6.95 mm for stem diameter. The plants of low fertilizer rate were distinguished by the largest volume of the root system (99.44 cm3). There is a pronounced tendency for a direct increase in nitrogen with increasing fertilizer rate. The experimental data obtained showed that the low fertilizer rate (N_1.3P_0.3K_0.7Mg_0.1) was optimal and led to the production of high-quality apple planting material suitable for establishing fruit orchards.

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