Abstract

BackgroundThe reduced growth of plants during the winter causes a lack in the perceptibility of the phenological events making challenging the study of dormancy. For deciduous crops, dormancy is generally determined by evaluating budbreak of single-node cuttings that are exposed to conditions suitable for growth. However, the absence of a statistical basis for analyzing and interpreting the budbreak behavior evaluated as the percent budbreak, the average time to budbreak and the time to reach 50% budbreak, has caused inconsistent and contradictory criteria to identify the dormancy status of different deciduous crops.ResultsIn this study, a method was developed to analyze the duration between sampling and budbreak of single-node cuttings and to estimate the dormancy status for grapevines (Vitis vinifera L.) based on the time-to-event distribution of the observations. This method estimates the probability curve of budbreak for each sample and classifies each curve into paradormancy, endodormancy, and ecodormancy according to the significance when compared to a sample curve estimated from cuttings collected during paradormancy and referred to as “reference.”ConclusionThe approach described in this study provided a comparison of the budbreak distribution of cuttings collected during distinct phases with a confidence of 95%. It also allowed the estimation of the date of occurrence of the dormancy stages for two grapevine cultivars ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ and ‘Chardonnay,’ based on the variability within the sampling season rather than on fixed arbitrary criteria. This approach can also be used to analyze budbreak data of single-node cuttings from other common deciduous crops.

Highlights

  • The reduced growth of plants during the winter causes a lack in the perceptibility of the phenological events making challenging the study of dormancy

  • Average duration to budbreak and percent budbreak Throughout the 4 years of the evaluation, both grapevine cultivars showed a period of increase of the average duration to budbreak and reduction of the percent budbreak of the cuttings caused by an internal arrest of bud growth during endodormancy

  • In 2013, for ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ the average duration to budbreak increased sharply from 23 to 130 days at 4 September and decreased at the end of October, suggesting the end of endodormancy, while the percent budbreak decreased from 100% to 83% only during September

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Summary

Introduction

The reduced growth of plants during the winter causes a lack in the perceptibility of the phenological events making challenging the study of dormancy. Plant dormancy can be classified into three different phases: paradormancy, endodormancy, and ecodormancy. During the subsequent period; endodormancy, development and growth are controlled by the perception within the bud of an environmental signal. Structures in this state are incapable of growth and development even if the external physiological signals are removed and returned to growth-promoting conditions [2, 3]. Endodormant buds avoid budbreak in response to a transient warming time during late autumn and the subsequent potential damage due to frost. There is a transition to ecodormancy, which is the period preceding budbreak when growth is prevented by one or more

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