Influence of berry thinning on yield, quality and biochemical changes in Crimson Seedless grapes

The research trial was conducted during 2023-2024 at the vineyard situated in ICAR-National Research Centre for Grapes, Pune. The berry thinning was performed at different berry developmental stages to prevent bunch compactness of Crimson Seedless grapes. The experiment was carried out in a randomized block design with five treatments and five replications. Berry thinning efficiently reduced the bunch compactness and produced medium loose bunches with optimum yield. However, it did not significantly influence yield. Early berry thinning at 4-6 mm berry stage led to increased berry size (17.04 mm) and improved quality parameters such as colour intensity (6.63 %), total phenolic content (1.17 mg 100 g-1) and anthocyanin (22.41 mg 100 g-1), while later thinning stages showed a diminishing effect. It was observed that thinning had advantage on producing quality grapes.