During 1993–94, in an area with a subtropical climate, 1500 m elevation, and 300 mm of precipitation, an experiment with `Golden Delicious' apples/MM.111 under irrigation was conducted with 11 treatments with three replications in a completely randomized complete-block design: T1, manual defoliation (27 Sept.); T2, 1% CuSO4 (15 Oct.); T3, 2% CuSO4 + Promesol (acido 2,3,4 trihydroxipentanodioico) (22 Oct.); T4, 1% CuSO4 + 0.1% Atlox; T5, 1% CuSO4 + 0.2% Atlox; T6, 1% CuSO4 + 0.1% Frigate; T7, 1% CuSO4 + 2% urea; T8, 2% sulfur; T9, 500 ppm tiadizuron + 1% carboxil; T4–T9, defoliation 12 Nov.; T10, control (natural defoliation on 3 Dec.); T11, 2% ZnSO4 + 0.07 carboxil (8 Nov.). All treatments received Atlox surfactant at 0.1%, except T4 and T5. On 11 Mar. 1994, trees received an application of 0.5% Dormex + 4% dormant oil. The percentage of terminal budbreak on 1-year-old wood was superior for T6, T9, and T11 compared with the control (11.7% budbreak on 2-year-old wood) for all treatments (except T1 and T3); all the treatments were superior to the control (47% budbreak), especially T2 (72.6%) and T9 (70.0%). The percentage of fruit set was similar in all treatments with the control (15.0%), except in T2 and T3, which set 7% more fruit.