• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.682-689
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• 2019

The Korean flowering cherry is a popular tree. However, the trees have started to defoliate early, including those in Gurye. Thus, it is necessary to identify the causes of the early defoliation and how to manage them. Therefore, the purpose of this study was threefold: 1) to investigate the early defoliation of flowering cherry trees, 2) to identify the differences in growth and flowering of the trees in response to treatment, and 3) to suggest an optimal treatment for the trees. The experiment was conducted in Gurye at a site 3km long with 102 flowering cherry trees along a street. There were three treatments: control, an environmentally friendly insecticide and a disinfectant(treatment 1), and an environmentally friendly insecticide, a disinfectant, and irrigation (treatment 2). The trees in Gurye were compared to trees on Jeju Island. The defoliation rates of the flowering cherry in Gurye were significantly higher than those on Jeju Island at each measurement time. Within Gurye, the defoliation rate was significantly higher in the trees of the control than in the two treatments and only the trees in the control from Gurye had shot-hole disease. Post-treatment, twigs collected from the control during April showed significantly poorer growth, lower numbers of flowering buds per twig, and lower numbers of foliar buds. The trees given treatment 1 showed significantly greater growth, number of total buds, flowering buds per twig, and density of buds than the trees given treatment 2. After analyzing the correlations, it was established that early defoliation led to poorer growth, affecting the flowering of the trees.