Articles
Enhancing budbreak in kiwifruit: a study of biological mechanisms involved in dormancy release and alternative potential products to the Hi-Cane
Article number
1431_13
Pages
103 – 110
Language
English
Abstract
In perennial plants, dormancy stops vegetative growth continuing to save energy and to protect the plants when environmental conditions become unsuitable or dangerous.
Several exogenous and endogenous factors are involved in dormancy initiation and dormancy release.
Winter chilling period and its characteristics (temperatures, duration, etc.) is a key environmental component for satisfying chilling requirement, which is known to be the main natural force activating budbreak processes and vegetative/reproductive resumption in spring.
Hydrogen Cyanamide (HC) is a powerful dormancy breaker, commonly used during the past years in kiwifruit to increase budbreak (BB) and flowering, to provide compact bloom and to decrease unwanted lateral flowers.
Its application has been banned in many countries because of its potentially hazardous nature, if used without careful consideration.
Unfortunately, it is not fully understood which endogenous mechanisms are involved in the HC induced budbreak in kiwifruit.
Previous studies on alternative dormancy breakers show that they are typically less effective than HC and less stable across time, different regions and cultivars.
A complex study of the dormancy related processes has been started in Italy in 2022. The study includes a field experiment with alternative to HC bud-breakers conducted in two different locations: Metaponto and Latina (south and central Italy, respectively) in two cultivars (‘Hayward’ and ‘Zesy002’). A restricted number of tested products have shown interesting characteristics as potential substitutes for HC treatments for both cultivars.
In general, those products have been evaluated as more sensitive to the optimal application period but when applied at the optimal treatment time, the results were comparable to HC. Furthermore, the new study includes in-depth molecular study of endogenous pathways involved in kiwifruit budbreak, in addition to the field trial.
Therefore, the study aims to characterize the dormancy outcome (with and without HC application), evidencing main endogenous factors involved.
The preliminary results are very promising and useful for planning the further work that should be done in order to improve our understanding of budbreak process in kiwifruit and specifically to hypothesize how kiwifruit orchards should be managed in an efficient way in absence of the HC.
Several exogenous and endogenous factors are involved in dormancy initiation and dormancy release.
Winter chilling period and its characteristics (temperatures, duration, etc.) is a key environmental component for satisfying chilling requirement, which is known to be the main natural force activating budbreak processes and vegetative/reproductive resumption in spring.
Hydrogen Cyanamide (HC) is a powerful dormancy breaker, commonly used during the past years in kiwifruit to increase budbreak (BB) and flowering, to provide compact bloom and to decrease unwanted lateral flowers.
Its application has been banned in many countries because of its potentially hazardous nature, if used without careful consideration.
Unfortunately, it is not fully understood which endogenous mechanisms are involved in the HC induced budbreak in kiwifruit.
Previous studies on alternative dormancy breakers show that they are typically less effective than HC and less stable across time, different regions and cultivars.
A complex study of the dormancy related processes has been started in Italy in 2022. The study includes a field experiment with alternative to HC bud-breakers conducted in two different locations: Metaponto and Latina (south and central Italy, respectively) in two cultivars (‘Hayward’ and ‘Zesy002’). A restricted number of tested products have shown interesting characteristics as potential substitutes for HC treatments for both cultivars.
In general, those products have been evaluated as more sensitive to the optimal application period but when applied at the optimal treatment time, the results were comparable to HC. Furthermore, the new study includes in-depth molecular study of endogenous pathways involved in kiwifruit budbreak, in addition to the field trial.
Therefore, the study aims to characterize the dormancy outcome (with and without HC application), evidencing main endogenous factors involved.
The preliminary results are very promising and useful for planning the further work that should be done in order to improve our understanding of budbreak process in kiwifruit and specifically to hypothesize how kiwifruit orchards should be managed in an efficient way in absence of the HC.
Publication
Authors
E. Lardo, Y. Kiryakova, A. Francini, A. Raffaelli, A.N. Mininni, E. Xylogiannis, M. Mastroleo, S. Fraser-Mackenzie, B. Dichio, L. Sebastiani
Keywords
bud breakers, ABA, JA, dormancy, ‘Zesy002’
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