: This investigation was executed during two successive seasons of 2006 and 2007 at the Experimental Orchard of Fruit Section, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University on Manfalouty pomegranate cultivar. Fifty trees of Manfalouty pomegranate cultivar were selected and divided into ten treatments; each treatment represented five trees (Replicates). The study aimed to investigate the effect of flower thinning and ethrel with or without GA3 spraying on yield and fruit quality of this cultivar. The treatments consisted of: manual thinning of all the flowers appeared during the last week of May till the end of flowering period, spraying with gibberellic acid (GA3) at 50, 100 and 150 ppm. , flower thinning + spraying with GA3 at 100 ppm., spraying with Ethrel at 1000 ppm. , spraying with Ethrel at 1000 ppm + GA3 at 50, 100 and 150 ppm and the control (water spraying).
The study indicated that flower thinning recorded the highest number of grade I fruits. Flower thinning and the flower thinning + spraying caused a significant decrease in the fruit numbers of grade III while the remained treatments showed insignificant differences. Concerning the effect of different treatments on the grade I yield weight (kg), most of treatments significantly surpassed the control. Flower thinning + 100 ppm GA3 recorded the highest grade I yield followed by flower thinning and then, spraying with 50 ppm GA3. There was no significant difference among the treatments regarding the yield weight of grade II. Flower thinning and flower thinning + 100 ppm GA3 significantly decreased grade III yield weight compared to the control. Most of the treatments significantly decreased the percentage of fruit splitting especially the treatments consisted of GA3. Spraying with ethrel or GA3 and their combinations greatly decreased this phenomenon. There was insignificant effect of the treatments on most of the studied physical fruit properties on the first sampling date while the effect was significant on the second one. The results also indicated that ethrel alone or combined with GA3 enhanced ripening.