Articles
Just the right amount of hydrogen cyanamide for profitable bud-break in low-chill peach cultivars
Article number
1344_22
Pages
143 – 150
Language
English
Abstract
Peach production is increasing in sub-tropical parts of the world.
Geographical locations like Florida, USA have advantage of supplying peaches before the fruit from northern states starts to get in market and as the production of peaches from southern hemisphere decreases.
However, often sub-tropical regions experience fluctuating weather and mild winters.
As a results dormancy and bud-break may compromise and trees show off season, prolonged, and inadequate bud-break, thus making peach production challenging.
Hydrogen cyanamide (HC) has been known for decades to result in uniform and synchronized bud-break in conditions when chill hour accumulation has been inadequate.
However, when variable stages of buds are present on the trees, a phytotoxic response (bud abscission) with use of HC can be observed.
HC results in bud-break via transient oxidative stress, high oxidative stress can cause abscission in advanced buds.
Therefore, this research was conducted to identify the effective rate of HC for uniform and appropriate bud-break in low-chill peach cultivars under moderate chill hours accumulation and very low chill hour accumulation (when buds are highly variable). It was found HC at 0.75% (almost half the rate of current practice) was effective in causing sufficient oxidative stress to cause uniform bud-break under moderate and low-chill accumulation.
The currently used rate 1.25% resulted in uniform bud-break as well however, a high amount of bud-abscission was observed under low-chill conditions.
Our results suggests that a low rate of HC (0.75%) is adequate in causing desirable physiological changes in buds thus making it safe to use when chill hour accumulation is far below expectation.
Geographical locations like Florida, USA have advantage of supplying peaches before the fruit from northern states starts to get in market and as the production of peaches from southern hemisphere decreases.
However, often sub-tropical regions experience fluctuating weather and mild winters.
As a results dormancy and bud-break may compromise and trees show off season, prolonged, and inadequate bud-break, thus making peach production challenging.
Hydrogen cyanamide (HC) has been known for decades to result in uniform and synchronized bud-break in conditions when chill hour accumulation has been inadequate.
However, when variable stages of buds are present on the trees, a phytotoxic response (bud abscission) with use of HC can be observed.
HC results in bud-break via transient oxidative stress, high oxidative stress can cause abscission in advanced buds.
Therefore, this research was conducted to identify the effective rate of HC for uniform and appropriate bud-break in low-chill peach cultivars under moderate chill hours accumulation and very low chill hour accumulation (when buds are highly variable). It was found HC at 0.75% (almost half the rate of current practice) was effective in causing sufficient oxidative stress to cause uniform bud-break under moderate and low-chill accumulation.
The currently used rate 1.25% resulted in uniform bud-break as well however, a high amount of bud-abscission was observed under low-chill conditions.
Our results suggests that a low rate of HC (0.75%) is adequate in causing desirable physiological changes in buds thus making it safe to use when chill hour accumulation is far below expectation.
Authors
B. Adhikari, T. Vashisth
Keywords
flowering, plant growth regulators, oxidative stress, gene expression
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