Effects of fruit thinning and some fruit and cladode components on fruit growth and fruit weight of cactus pear Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill

The aim of this paper is to study the effect of fruit thinning and some fruit and cladode components on fruit growth and weight of cactus pear Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill. The relationships between the fruit fresh weight and each of the parameters number of fruits per cladode, surface of cladodes and the dry weight of cladodes are studied. Experiments were carried out on an adult plantation of cactus pear in the Agadir area. Fruit thinning treatments used were: T: control without thinning, T1: thinning treatment of 6 fruits per cladode and T2: thinning treatment of 12 fruits per cladode. The size of cladodes used are: the small cladodes (C1), the medium cladodes (C2) and the large cladodes (C3). Obtained results showed that fruit thinning and the surface of cladodes and the interaction of the two factors have a significant effect (p ≤ 0.001) on fruit growth. On May 10, 2019, the highest rate of growth was obtained with the combination T1/C3 (thinning treatment T1 and large cladodes C3), with 1.6 cm for fruit length and 1 cm for fruit diameter, and the lowest rate of growth was obtained with the combination C1/T (not thinned plants and small cladodes C1) with 0.5 cm for fruit length and 0.3 cm for fruit diameter. The ratio dry weight of cladodes/ number of fruits per cladode has a significant effect (p ≤ 0.001) on the fruit fresh weight. The increase in the dry weight of cladodes and the reduction in the number of fruits per cladode leads to the production of fruits with large size. Positive linear relationships exist between the fruit fresh weight and the ratio dry weight of cladodes/ number of fruits per cladode, between the fruit fresh weight and the number of fruits per cladode, and between the fruit fresh weight and the surface of cladodes and the coefficient of determination R2 for each linear relationship is close to 1.