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Photosynthesis Research for Food, Fuel and the Future pp 818–824Cite as

The Photosynthetic Surface Area of Apple Trees

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Part of the book series: Advanced Topics in Science and Technology in China ((ATSTC))

Abstract

The development of stem and leaf surface areas were studied comparatively throughout a year’s cycle, and the proportions of these areas within the total area of trees were calculated. Depending on the variety, the total surface areas of trees: all branches, boughs and tree trunks after winter pruning, ranged from 27 dm2 to 118 dm2. At the beginning of the vegetation season, the proportion of leaves in newly developed stems amounted to 90%–92%, and the proportion of these new stems was 8%–10%. Later in the vegetation season, the leaf area amounted to 83%–89%, and that of new stems 11%–17%, and there were no differences between the varieties. Towards the end of the vegetation season, total leaf area on a tree ranged from 110–120 dm2 to 296 dm2, whereas the area of newly grown stems ranged from 42 dm2 to 168 dm2.

In the course of the vegetation season, the proportion of the stem area decreased while that of leaves increased, and from August onwards the leaf area exceeded that of stems in the majority of the studied varieties. In the final part of the vegetation season, the leaf area was higher than area of stems, by over 20%–45%.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Plant Physiology PAS, Niezapominajek 21, 30-239, Krakow, Poland

    Krzysztof Tokarz, Jan Pilarski & Maciej Kocurek

  2. The Institute of Biology, The Jan Kochanowski University of Humanities and Sciences, Kielce, Poland

    Jan Pilarski & Maciej Kocurek

Authors
  1. Krzysztof Tokarz
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  2. Jan Pilarski
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  3. Maciej Kocurek
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Correspondence to Krzysztof Tokarz .

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© 2013 Zhejiang University Press, Hangzhou and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Tokarz, K., Pilarski, J., Kocurek, M. (2013). The Photosynthetic Surface Area of Apple Trees. In: Photosynthesis Research for Food, Fuel and the Future. Advanced Topics in Science and Technology in China. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32034-7_174

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