ISHS Acta Horticulturae 618: XXVI International Horticultural Congress: Environmental Stress and Horticulture Crops
CHARACTERIZING THE EVERGROWING PHENOTYPE IN PEACH |
| Authors: | Y. Wang, G.L. Reighard, R. Scorza, T.C. Jenkins, M.J. Line |
| Keywords: | grafting, abscisic acid (ABA), decapitation, fatty acid, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), free water |
| Abstract:
'Evergrowing' peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] is a mutant phenotype that exhibits a different growing pattern in winter than that of wild type deciduous peach. In temperate locations, the terminal apices on evergrowing trees continue growing in winter until killed by low temperatures, whereas lateral buds become dormant. Three experiments were designed to characterize this evergrowing phenotype of peach. A grafting experiment confirmed that dormancy "signals" could not be transported from the dormant deciduous branches to the growing evergrowing branches on the same tree. Foliage spraying of STC, an ABA-like chemical, slightly, but not significantly, inhibited the new growth on evergrowing trees. Budbreak percentages in a decapitation experiment suggested a paradormancy condition for lateral buds on evergrowing trees. In this decapitation experiment, both the saturated and unsaturated fatty acids in evergrowing terminal apices had different changing profiles than those in the buds of deciduous trees. Considering the atypical concentrations of ABA and fatty acids in the buds/apices and the continuous shoot growth in the terminal apices, evergrowing peach might be a candidate model system for study of winter dormancy in woody plants. | |
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