Effects of deficit irrigation and kaolin application on vegetative growth and fruit traits of two early ripening apple cultivars

Table 2 The effect of irrigation treatments (I₁ = 100%, I₂ = 85% and I₃ = 70% ETc), kaolin application (K₁ = 0%, K₂ = 3% and K₃ = 6%) and their interaction, on vegetative traits of ‘Golabʼand ‘Shafi-Abadiʼ apples

Treatments	SL (%)	SD (%)	TCSA (%)	CI
Irrigation (I)	**	**	ns	**
I₁	18.80^a	13.01^a	1.79^a	44.33^a
I₂	10.67^b	8.42^b	1.75^a	41.25^a
I₃	11.09^b	3.26^c	1.65^a	31.12^b
Kaolin (K)	ns	*	ns	ns
K₁	12.10^a	7.39^b	1.77^a	37.39^a
K₂	14.16^a	8.91^a	1.71^a	39.32^a
K₃	14.30^a	8.40^ab	1.72^a	40.00^a
Cultivar (CV)	ns	ns	*	**
Golab	13.69^a	8.31a	1.84a	34.72^b
Shafi Abadi	13.36^a	8.16a	1.63b	43.08^a
Interactions
I × K	ns	ns	*	ns
I × CV	ns	ns	ns	ns
K × CV	ns	*	**	ns
I × K × CV	ns	ns	ns	*

Relative shoot length growth (SL), relative shoot diameter growth (SD), trunk cross sectional area (TCSA) and chlorophyll index (CI)
Means within each column for each treatment followed by the same letters are not significantly different at P ≤ 0.05
ns not significant
* and ** significant at 5% and 1% level by Duncan test