Dormant Flower Buds Actively Accumulate Starch over Winter in Sweet Cherry
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Date
2018
Authors
Fadón Adrián, EricaHerrero Romero, María
Rodrigo García, Francisco Javier
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Abstract
Temperate woody perennials survive to low temperatures in winter entering a dormant
stage. Dormancy is not just a survival strategy, since chilling accumulation is required
for proper flowering and arbitrates species adaptation to different latitudes. In spite of
the fact that chilling requirements have been known for two centuries, the biological
basis behind remain elusive. Since chilling accumulation is required for the normal
growth of flower buds, it is tempting to hypothesize that something might be going
on at this particular stage during winter dormancy. Here, we characterized flower
bud development in relation to dormancy, quantifying changes in starch in the flower
primordia in two sweet cherry cultivars over a cold and a mild year. Results show
that, along the winter, flower buds remain at the same phenological stage with flower
primordia at the very same developmental stage. But, surprisingly, important variation in
the starch content of the ovary primordia cells occurs. Starch accumulated following the
same pattern than chilling accumulation and reaching a maximum at chilling fulfillment.
This starch subsequently vanished during ecodormancy concomitantly with ovary
development before budbreak. These results showed that, along the apparent inactivity
during endodormancy, flower primordia were physiologically active accumulating starch,
providing a biological basis to understand chilling requirements.
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Frontiers Of Plant Science, vol. 9, 2018
AGROVOC subjects
CerezoPrunus avium
Floración
Plantas perennes
Sponsorship
This research was supported by Ministerio de Economía,
Industria y Competitividad (MEIC) – European Regional
Development Fund, European Union (AGL2012-40239 and
BES-2010-037992 to EF); Instituto Nacional de Investigación
Agraria (INIA) (RTA2014-00085-00, RFP2015-00015-00, and
RTA2017-00003-00); Gobierno de Aragón – European Social
Fund, European Union (Grupo Consolidado A-43).