I want to provide explant from my Peach-Almond hybrid rootstock but they haven't new growth any more. they are 2 years old and planted in pot. it should be noted that we are in early of autumn season and I know that gibberellin hormones and long day period can prevent falling off.
Your pots are likely too small. As trees grow bigger, they have larger root systems and need more soil volume to continue to grow. You must transplant your trees into bigger pots as they grow and become root bound which stops growth. A big tree needs a big pot!
Thank you Dear Alphus, This could be one of the reasons. recently I re-pot my plants.
One solution, if truly continuous growth is not required, is to chill the plants for a period of time and return them to the greenhouse/nursery. This likely will greatly reduce the time the plants are dormant/quiescent. Someone out there likely knows the correct temperature and minimum length of time to get peaches/almonds to break dormancy in this manner.
I don't think that keeping trees in continuous growth is a good idea as explant source. I tried that years ago with apple trees and it ended up with real confused physiology of the donor plants. As a result, the explants taken on these trees never gave anything good compared with explants taken on sprouting trees after dormancy release. Better to plan a dormancy period.
Dear Dr. Tremblay
thank you.
could you refer a reference for your assertion. it seems so amazing. I should try it because I need explant immediately. nevertheless I think hormones (specially ABA and GA) and nutrition have main role in the falling off process.
Sorry but I never published my results on the subject. I agree that hormones and nutrition are involved : that's why I gave a dormancy relief period which brings back hormones and mineral levels in the tissues to a level suitable to resume growth (spring), which is necessary for the explant to fully develop under in vitro conditions. Plant physiology is extremely complex: we don't know that much about what is exactly happening during dormancy relief, bud flushing, sustained growth and, particularly, what makes an explant behave the way we want it to behave. I am always very humble with plants: I consider that they know what they have to do and how to do it, surely better that me! Therefore, I prefer to encourage the normal plant physiology to do the job, and the easiest way is to go through normal phenology.
Thank you so much dear Dr. Tremblay for your perfect answers. May I request you a method to give a dormancy relief period. I respect your opinion but I think by understanding any biological process and gene functions in plants we can control them and order what we want.
Sorry dear but I never worked with peachXalmond. You'd better find an expert on this hybrid since dormancy relief conditions is species dependent. Of course, understanding gene functions in plants was hoped to help to control them and 'order what we want'. However, I have major problem with this assertion. The theory is good but the reality that I observed in the last 20 years or so is not that great. What I saw is a bunch of geneticists going through lot's of money to hopefully describe what is happening at the gene level during a so-called 'physiological' process. However, since geneticists work exclusively with other geneticists (at least in Canada), I saw them describing very precisely the genes involved in a, what they believe to be, a precise 'physiological' process. Unhappily, since they consider plant physiologists as useless, the physiology of the plants that they study is not under control so the conclusions are anything but relevant. If geneticists were not so arrogant, we should already have a good understanding of what is happening in plants. However, for the time being, I am not so sure that we are going anywhere (except increasing the number of publications in geneticist CVs). That's a shame and a waste of time and money and expertise.
Dear Dr. Tremblay
As I said before understanding biological process (related to physiologists) and gene function (related to geneticists) so I mean we need a collaboration both of them.
As a general instant idea,Could you take some branches and dip them in auxin(such as IBA or IAA)? so that you can have more plantlets to test various growth condition.
Small pots will limit plant growth.
By pruning try to maintain the canopy size of the perennial within the accommodation capacity of the green house. All the best.
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