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Flowering and stress.
OK. Now I believe you, Kits and Jim. I had to read up on plant
physiology in order to understand why this might be true. Anyone who has the requisite fortitude can read this: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~tuy/thesis/Review.htm but everyone else is welcome to my summary: Flowering is very complicated, influenced by hormones and climate. However, there is one simple fact: there is a short period in summer when the new branches have finished elongating and developing buds "decide" whether to include flower primordia or not. Now I had assumed that the decision would have been made based on plant health: A healthy plant would have the sugar supplies to invest in flower buds. And this is roughly true. A tree that is very drought-stressed will not put energy into next year's flowers. A tree that has been defoliated will not flower the next year. However, a healthy tree that has flowered heavily that spring and set a lot of fruit will not form as many flower buds that summer because all the spare energy will be going to the currently-developing fruits. It's not "health" per se that decides flowering (plants don't have nervous systems; they don't "know" if they are healthy or not), it's sugar. The buds will develop flower primordia if sugar is present. So in what situation would a tree be dying, yet have lots of sugar available? Easy: if the roots are rotted. Roots are generally the sugar storage site: if the root system is inadequate due to stem girdling, root pruning, or root rot, the extra sugar will be available to stimulate flower bud formation, even though the tree is in danger of dying. Nina, now satisfied. |
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