Abstract
In most temperate fruit trees, fruits are located on one-year old shoots. In Prunus species, flowers and fruits are born in axillary position along those shoots. The axillary bud fate and branching patterns are thus key components of the cultivar potential fruit production. The objective of this study was to analyze the branching and bearing behaviors of 1-year-old shoots of apricot cultivars and clones genetically closely related. Shoot structures were analyzed in terms of axillary bud fates using hidden semi-Markov chains and compared depending on the genotype, year and shoot length. The shoots were composed of three successive zones containing latent buds (basal zone), central flower buds (median zone) and vegetative buds (distal zone), respectively. The last two zones contained few associated flower buds. The zones length (in number of metamers) and occurrence strongly depended on shoot development in the two successive years. With decrease in the number of metamers per shoot, the last two zones become shorter or may not develop. While the number of metamers of the basal and distal zones and the number of associated flower buds correlated to the number of metamers of the shoot, the number of metamers of the median zone and the transition probability from the median to the distal zone were cultivar specific.
Highlights
The architecture of temperate fruit trees is characterized by high-order branching structures composed of multiple axes of different lengths and complexities
The higher number of associated flower buds along the neoformed part of medium and long shoots suggests that these flower buds may differentiate in locations less specific than the central floral buds and during a longer period along the vegetation season
We demonstrated that, in apricot adult trees, shoots are structured in three different and successive zones composed of latent buds, flower buds and vegetative buds
Summary
The architecture of temperate fruit trees is characterized by high-order branching structures composed of multiple axes of different lengths and complexities. This structure results from the differentiation and organogenetic activity of axillary meristems located at each metamer (composed of node its corresponding leaf and axillary bud plus the subtending internode) along the parent shoot. Axillary buds may have different fates leading to various shoot types with different rates and timings of outgrowth [1, 2, 3].
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