Correlation between air temperature, rainfall and weekly fruit growth rate in some apple varieties.

The paper presents the results of a three year study on the correlation between air temperature, rainfall and weekly fruit growth rate in different apple varieties. The studies involved five high quality apple varieties including Golden Delicious-clone B, Jonagored, Gloster, Breburn and Red Fuji - Naga Fu-2. The trial was set up at the experimental orchard of the Faculty of Agriculture in East Sarajevo. The research results showed correlation between air temperature, rainfall and weekly fruit growth rate, significant differences being observed in the intensity of correlation between the varieties studied. With some varieties the correlation was very weak and with others it was very high. Variations in the intensity of correlation between air temperature, rainfall and fruit growth rate over the research period were induced by climate factors (temperature and rainfall). Apart from the significant impact of climate factors (temperature and rainfall), significant differences in the intensity of correlation were most likely due to the genotypic specificity of response of each variety to different climate factors under given growth conditions.