Sweet cherry producers seek practices that improve water and nutrient efficiency, though the use of organic soil amendments raises concerns that elevated late-season soil nitrogen could delay cold acclimation. We evaluated fruit bud cold hardiness under three soil amendment (bare soil, mulch, compost) and two irrigation (drippers, microsprinklers) treatments over two seasons. Cold hardiness was greater under drip irrigation in both seasons and under drip irrigation with mulch or compost in one season. Organic amendments neither delayed cold acclimation nor reduced cold hardiness. Irrigation and soil amendments influence bud cold hardiness but underlying mechanisms require further study.
Hannam et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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