Three-dimensional reconstructed canopies of apple cultivars grafted on different interstocks

Canopy architecture is important for a range of orchard ecosystem processes, including radiation interception and distribution within canopy, flowering, carbon assimilation, fruit yield and quality and pest and pathogen attacks in fruit trees. The canopy of fruit tree varies greatly from cultivar to cultivar, and can be manipulated by horticultural practices, such as rootstock, pruning, training etc. We collected canopy architectural data in ‘Fuji’ and ‘Gala’ apple cultivars which were grafted onto two rootstock/interstock combinations: M. micromalus/M. domestica cv. ‘Qinguan’, a vigorous interstock and M. micromalus/M26, a dwarf interstock. Allometric relationships at leaf and shoot scale were determined for all shoot types before harvests in 2011 and 2012, including bourse, bourse short shoot, bourse long shoot, vegetative short shoot, and vegetative long shoot. A dataset of 4351 records of leaf Euler angles were digitized for all shoot types. For 19 trees, their 3D distribution of the foliage within canopy was reconstructed by combining both the spatial locations of shoots (as measured from 3D digitizing) and foliage reconstruction based on allometric relationships and leaf angle distributions. We believe this dataset is a valuable resource for studies and models that require leaf angles and detailed 3D virtual canopies.