Abstract
Adequate chill is of great importance for successful production of deciduous fruit trees. However, temperate fruit trees grown under tropical and subtropical regions may face insufficient winter chill, which has a crucial role in dormancy and productivity. The objective of this review is to discuss the challenges for dormancy and chilling requirements of temperate fruit trees, especially in warm winter regions, under climate change conditions. After defining climate change and dormancy, the effects of climate change on various parameters of temperate fruit trees are described. Then, dormancy breaking chemicals and organic compounds, as well as some aspects of the mechanism of dormancy breaking, are demonstrated. After this, the relationships between dormancy and chilling requirements are delineated and challenging aspects of chilling requirements in climate change conditions and in warm winter environments are demonstrated. Experts have sought to develop models for estimating chilling requirements and dormancy breaking in order to improve the adaption of temperate fruit trees under tropical and subtropical environments. Some of these models and their uses are described in the final section of this review. In conclusion, global warming has led to chill deficit during winter, which may become a limiting factor in the near future for the growth of temperate fruit trees in the tropics and subtropics. With the increasing rate of climate change, improvements in some managing tools (e.g., discovering new, more effective dormancy breaking organic compounds; breeding new, climate-smart cultivars in order to solve problems associated with dormancy and chilling requirements; and improving dormancy and chilling forecasting models) have the potential to solve the challenges of dormancy and chilling requirements for temperate fruit tree production in warm winter fruit tree growing regions.
Highlights
Climate change refers to any long-term changes in climate status such as global atmospheric CO2 or mean temperature due to human activities or natural variability [1]
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods” [2]
Climatic changes may alter the adaptability and sustainability of temperate fruit trees to their production regions. This is inciting scientists to develop strategies that may improve the adaptability of trees to such changes, winter warming, which may be helpful in the interpretation of some ambiguous physiological and biochemical dormancy-related issues [11]
Summary
Climate change refers to any long-term changes in climate status (i.e., decades or longer) such as global atmospheric CO2 or mean temperature due to human activities or natural variability [1]. All climatic elements affect plant growth, development and the productivity of different fruit crops. Temperate fruit crops undergo several physiological processes related to winter dormancy and chilling requirements; this is especially the case under tropical and subtropical conditions [4]. Climatic changes may alter the adaptability and sustainability of temperate fruit trees to their production regions. This is inciting scientists to develop strategies that may improve the adaptability of trees to such changes, winter warming, which may be helpful in the interpretation of some ambiguous physiological and biochemical dormancy-related issues [11]. The aim of this review was to discuss the events relating to dormancy and chilling requirements of temperate fruit trees in warm winter regions in light of global climatic change
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