Preface

Summary

Biology of Apples and Pears is written for undergraduates and postgraduate students of horticultural science, for scientists from other disciplines who need a core reference book on these crops, and for fruit growers and technical advisers.

There is already a vast amount of published work on apple and pear biology and production. However, much of this literature is difficult to interpret and apply in the context of rapid changes in areas of production – hence environmental constraints – and of cultivars with basic differences in physiology. This book addresses these issues directly by emphasising responses to environment, and cultural and storage technology at the cultivar level.

Biology of Apples and Pears deals with the biology of their eating quality and its retention as well as of their tree growth and cropping. It also emphasises the factors underlying the dramatic change from orchards of large trees to modern high-density orchards of dwarfed trees, and also those underlying modern techniques of fruit tree irrigation and nutrition.

Throughout the book the results of research on apple and pear biology are linked to the relevant current concepts in more basic seciences. The numerous references, therefore, cover both crop-specific and basic-science research papers and reviews.

Given the breadth of coverage, from anatomy and histology through physiology to biotechnology and disease, pest and environmental stress resistance there must inevitably be questions of relative emphasis.