Abstract
Successful yield in orchards is the culmination of a series of events that start with plants entering dormancy with adequate energy reserves (non-structural carbohydrates; NSC). These NSC are responsible for the maintenance of activities during dormancy and extending onto the period of activeness. Using multi-year yield information and monthly NSC content in twigs, we show that high levels of carbohydrate in Prunus dulcis, Pistachio vera, and Juglans regia during the winter months are indeed associated with high yield, while high levels of the NSC in late summer often correlate with low yield. An evaluation of monthly NSC level importance on yield revealed that for P. dulcis high levels in February were a good predictor of yield and that low levels throughout summer were associated with high yield. In P. vera, high levels of NSC in December were best predictors of yield. J. regia exhibited peculiar patterns; while high pre-budbreak reserves were associated with high yields they only played a minor role in explaining crop, the most important months for predicting yields were June and July. Results suggest that NSC levels can serve as good predictors of orchard yield potential and should be monitored to inform orchard management.
Highlights
Short-term variability typically results from the day/night cycle wherein metabolic processes continuously draw energy from nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) reserves which are all the while replenished by the daily photosynthetic activity[5]
Since NSC levels and their form can affect a range of physiological activities, it is important to ask if and when NSC content has the greatest impact on tree productivity and if it is always better to assure high NSC content to generate high yields
During the active period spanning from April till July, NSC contents were not significantly correlated with the current-year yield
Summary
Successful yield in orchards is the culmination of a series of events that start with plants entering dormancy with adequate energy reserves (non-structural carbohydrates; NSC). The level of NSC in twigs, in particular, seems to be the most variable yet the most indicative of whole tree storage status[3] and is of major importance in terms of energy supply for flower development and during the initial phases of vegetative bud growth in species like Prunus dulcis, Pistacia vera, and Juglans regia[1,6]. Since NSC levels and their form can affect a range of physiological activities, it is important to ask if and when NSC content has the greatest impact on tree productivity and if it is always better to assure high NSC content to generate high yields To answer these questions, we used multi-year observations of NSC content in twigs of P. dulcis, P. vera, and J. regia and combined them with reported yields for over 300 orchards located across the Central Valley, CA, USA
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