DEVELOPMENT OF CHILLING AND FORCING RELATIONSHIPS FOR MODELING SPRING PHENOLOGY OF APPLE AND SWEET CHERRY

In response to changing climate, the area for tender crop production is expanding in Canada, with concomitant risks for spring frost damage.
Assessment of current and future regional crop suitability requires models of bud break and floral bud development.
A combination of controlled experiments and field observations was used to develop models of endo-dormancy completion (chilling), bud break (forcing) and floral bud development, in response to temperature for apple and sweet cherry.
Mean absolute errors (MAE) for estimating full bloom in apple and sweet cherry, ranged between 1.6-2.0 days and for estimating floral development stages between bud break and full bloom, 2.8 and 2.5 days, respectively.
Short-term (3 years) spatial datasets, representing a wide range of micro-climates, had similar variation in full bloom dates and MAE as longer term (71 years for apple and 14 years for sweet cherry) data sets collected at one location and were thus considered suitable for model verification.

IX International Symposium on Modelling in Fruit Research and Orchard Management

D. Neilsen, I. Losso, G. Neilsen, S. Guak

bud break, flowering, climate, dormancy, temperature

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2015.1068.15