This study was carried out during 2014 and 2015 seasons to examine the effect of three levels of fruiting spur length (two, three or four eyes/ spur) and four concentrations of seaweed extract (0.05, 0.1, 0.2 or 0.4%) on the percentages of bud burst and fruiting buds, growth, vine nutritional status, yield and berries quality of Early sweet grapevines grown under Minia region conditions.
Increasing fruiting spur length from two to four eyes resulted in a gradual reduction on bud burst%, leaf area, berry setting%, yield, cluster weight and dimensions, shot berries% and total acidity%, while fruiting buds%, shoot length, number of leaves / shoot, percentages of N, P, K, Mg and Ca, berry weight and dimensions, T.S.S%, total sugars % and T.S.S./acid ratio were progressively enhanced. Foliar application of seaweed extract at 0.05% to 0.4% resulted in stimulating all the investigated characteristics except shot berries% and total acidity% over the check treatment. The effect was in proportional to the increase in concentrations of seaweed extract. All the studied parameters were unaffected by increasing concentrations of seaweed extract from 0.2 to 0.4%.
For promoting the yield of Early Sweet grapevines quantitatively, it is suggested to prune the vines leaving 30 fruiting spurs x two eyes/ each besides spraying seaweed extract three times at 0.2%. Pruning to leave15 fruiting spurs x four eyes/ each plus spraying seaweed extract three times at 0.2% gave the best results with regard to quality of the berries