Abstract
Key message
In adult walnut trees, poor light environments increase the number of catkins on a shoot, reducing the probability of bearing fruits. Growth units become shorter with the aging of the tree, tending to reach a stable length.
Abstract
Tree architecture results from the functioning of populations of meristems across consecutive periods of extension or growing cycles. The study of growth units (GUs) and the type of their axillary meristem lead to a better understanding of tree growth and allow the prediction of tree development under different environmental conditions. To study the effect of position inside the canopy on branch development and the relationship between parent wood and new shoots, 348 GUs from 14 five-to-six-year-old limbs (7 from upper/exposed and 7 from lower/shaded zones within the canopy) were analyzed. Each node was classified according to its axillary meristem type as: 0 (bud, dormant bud, bud scar and dead bud), 1 (fruit and fruit peduncle scar), 2 (male inflorescence or “catkin”, catkin scar and dead catkin) and 3 (branch and branch scar). Data were analyzed through a multinomial logistic model to summarize the distribution of axillary meristem type as a function of explanatory variables. Length of GUs and the number of catkins were modeled through a generalized linear mixed model, whereas the probability of finding fruit on apical nodes was analyzed through generalized additive models. Results show that axillary meristem type is affected by zone, node rank and wood age. On GUs of wood age two or younger, apical buds from upper/exposed zones showed higher probabilities of producing fruits compared with apical buds from lower/shaded zones. The latter was not observed for older wood. In upper/exposed zones, the slope of the relationship between the length of GUs and the length of parent wood increased with wood age. The number of catkins was higher in the lower/shaded than in the upper/exposed zone. The results of this study improve our understanding about walnut tree growth as affected by factors like ontogenetic changes and different light conditions within the tree canopy and might be useful to address tree managements such as training and pruning systems.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Mr. Giovanni Lobos from the Centro Experimental Choapa, Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA) Intihuasi, Illapel, Chile, for his aid in this research.
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Valdebenito, D., Laca, E.A., Fernandez, E. et al. A network of shoots: effects of ontogeny and light availability on growth units in Chandler walnuts. Trees 34, 177–188 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-019-01909-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-019-01909-3