Root ball characteristics of nursery-grown (six months) Chanticleer pear in three container types (2010).
| Root ball integrityz | Bottom root ball mattingy | Circling rootsx | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black plastic | 4.9 | 1.5c | 2.2c |
| Root Pouch | 4.9 | 3.0b | 3.7b |
| Smart Pot | 4.3 | 4.0a | 4.4a |
| ns | *** | ** |
↵z Root ball integrity (how well the root ball held together when removed from the container; scale of 1–5, with 5 holding together well).
↵y Root ball matting (matting on the bottom of the root ball; scale of 1–5, with 1 being many matted roots).
↵x Circling roots (frequency, based on a scale of 1–5; with 1 being many circling roots).
↵Notes: Means within a column for each measurement followed by different letters are significantly different at P = 0.05 using Tukey’s LSD test; ns = not significant; single asterisk (*) indicates P = 0.05–0.01; double asterisk (**) indicates P = 0.01–0.001; triple asterisk (***) indicates P ≥ 0.001.