Pinching

Pinching 

the removal of the terminal shoots of plants. In fruit cultivation (apple, peach, pear, and apricot), pinching is used to form the crowns of the plants and to regulate shoot growth or the tree’s fruit-bearing capacity. Pinching is done manually or with pruning shears, leaving each pinched branch with seven to ten leaves. Growth of the pinched shoots is retarded, and growth of the remaining shoots is intensified. Compacting of the crown is prevented, shoot lignification is accelerated, and the transformation of growing shoots into fruiting ones occurs. Trees that have been pinched require less pruning in the following spring. In vegetable cultivation, pinching is used for cucumbers in greenhouses and hothouses and for eggplants, brussels sprouts, and sugar beet and carrot seedlings in the open ground.

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Pinching 

removal of the tops of shoots or the top shoots from agricultural plants to improve the formation of fruit and to speed up ripening of the harvest. After pinching, the shoots stop growing, and there is an intensified flow of nutrients to the young fruit, which reduces self-thinning and creates the best conditions for development of the fruit. Pinching is used for cotton, grapes, and other crops.

Pinching or chopping cotton speeds up fiber maturation and boll opening and reduces plant lodging. The procedure is done when 14 to 16 productive branches have developed on a bush. The main stem is cut back 4–6 cm, and lateral shoots 2–3 cm. Cotton is chopped by a 4VKh-4 cultivator attachment at the same time that the interrow spaces are loosened or irrigation furrows are cut.

Pinching grape plants accelerates shoot maturation, promotes the accumulation of plastic substances in the shoots to improve winter-hardiness, and increases the sugar content of the fruit. Grapes are pinched when plant growth slows down, usually in the second ten days of August. The top one-fifth of shoots that have overgrown their trellises and the tops of lateral shoots are removed, leaving two or three leaves on each. Young grape plants are not pinched.