1

Davide NERId.neri@uni vpm.i t

STRAWBERRY PLANT ARCHITECTURE:

TRAY PLANT STRUCTURE AND

PROGRAMMING

Polytechnic University of MarcheDepartment of Environmental and Crop ScienceVia Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy.

Antwerp, 2nd September 2010

Problems• Plant Architecture

– Definition

– Physiological meaning

• Tray Plant Structure– Number of inflorescences

– Number of flowers

• Tray Plant Programming– Fruit production cycles (earliness, peacks)

– Harvest season duration (extension)

– Fruit quality

Plant architecture• The strawberry plant is a herbaceous perennial rosette

and the stem or crown has secondary cambium activity. • The internodes are very short and a number of long-

petiole tri foliate leaves are arranged spirally on the axis.

• The axillary meristems may develop into stolons or branch crowns, with a regular positioning along the axis, and in strict relation with crown growth rate.

• Under favourable environmental conditions floral induction occurs at th e apex of the crown.

Extension growth of the crown continues along the axis of the uppermost lateral meristem below the terminal inflorescence (extension crown extension axis), thus giving a sympodialstructure to the crown which is not apparent at first sight.

Savini et al 2005

Different plant representations

Guttri dge, 1955Dana M .N. ; 1974

INFLORESCENCE

EXPANDED LEAF

RUNNER

NOT EXPANDEND LEAF

AXILLARY DORMANT BUD

LATERAL CROWN

LATENT BUD (W ITH DEAD LEAF)

(Savini 2002)

12

2

CENTRAL AXIS LATERAL AXIS

GROWTH

GROWTH

ARREST

ARREST

FI

FLOWERINDUCTION

TI ME

GENERAL PHYSIOLOGICAL MODEL

Zucconi, 2002

dor ma ncy

dor ma ncychil lingchil ling

Growth

2

ORGANOGRAPHY

First crown Runners

Inflorescence

Axillary buds

Leaves

Secondary crown

Tertiary crown

Extension meristem

Inflorescence

Trace of the last leaf

primordium

Neri 2000

Stolon apex

Leaf pr imordium

Neri 2000

Axil lary buds

Neri 2000

Meristema apicaledifferenziato a fiore

2° meristema ascellare, sta sviluppando in uno stolone

1° meristemaascellare, origina il meristema apicale di sostituzione

1st axillarymeristemIt w ill act asextensioncrown

Apical meristem

2nd axillarymeristemIt isoriginating a stolon

Neri 2000

Flower formation

• Flower induction

• Flower init iation• Flower differentiation

each phase has its own optimum for

– Temperature

– Daylength

– …. other factors

3

Day Length (h) 8 10 12 14 16

Flower induction

Runners

Leaf area

Lateral branches

Re-elaboration from: Hancock (1999)

0 15 20 25 30

TEMPERATURE (°C )

Flower induction Vegetative growth

RE

LA

TIV

E G

RO

WT

H 10080

60

40200

Temperature °C

6

12

18

24

Vegetative growth

Ph

oto

pe

rio

d

Flower induction

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

From Ito and Saito, 1962

Stress thermophotoperiods

0

10

20

30

40

50

12 18 240

1

2

3

4

5

n. flow er n.s to lon

n./f

low

er

°C

Te mpe ratu re effe ct

n.s

tolo

n

(Heid e, 1976)

0123456

1 0 1 2 14 1 6 2 4

n.i nf lor n.s tolon

n/pl

ant

Photop eriod effect

Photoperi od (He ide, 1976)

In the intermediate conditions there are:

- Flower induction

-Vegetative growth HIGH VIGOURNO APICAL DOMINANCE

BEGINNING OF FALL:LOW VIGOUR

APICAL DOMINANCE(DORMANT BUD)

FALL:FLOWER FORMATION

NO APICAL DOMINANCE

AFTER PLANTING :LOW VIGOUR

APICAL DOMINANCE (LATERAL BUD DORMANCY)

FACTORS AFFECTING VEGETATIVE AND REPRODUCTIVE RATE

- Apical dominance

-Growth Rate

- Dormancy

- Physiological phaseof single organs

Vegetative apex

Stolon formation

Bud differentiation,

not in the whole plant

Different interpretation of each organ on the same condition

high

low

Phase 0

Phase7Phase6

Phase 5Phase 4

Phase 3Phase 2Phase 1

Phase 8Neri et al. 2009

4

Tray plants 30 days after transplanting

- MINERAL NUTRITION (Shoot to r oot r ati o) ( Stri k, 1985; Battey et al. 1998; Lieten; 2002; Bigey; 2002)

- SHADING 85% (C ar bon Bal ance) (Kumakura e Shishido,1985)

- LEAF REMOVAL ( C ar bon Bal ance) (Thompson e Guttridge, 1960)

- WATER STRESS ( Sever al fac tors) (Naumann, 1961)

- TRANSPLANTING ( Shoot to r oot r ati o) (Fujishighe, 1994)

- SMALL POT ( Shoot to root r ati o) (Fujishighe, 1994).

FLOWER INDUCTION

WITH DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES

PRINCIPAL AXIS GROW TH

GROW TH ARREST

APICAL DOMINANCE

NO LATERAL GROW TH

LOW VIGOUR

RUNNER GROWTH (SILLEPTIC)

HIGH VIGOUR

FLOW ER DIFFERENTIATION

GROW TH OFLATERAL MERISTEMS

GROW TH ARREST

FLOW ER DIFFERENTIATION

Condition for induction

Condition for induction

FACTOR INFLUENCING VEGETATIVE AND REPRODUCTIVE RATE

- Apical dominance

- Growth Rate - Dormancy

-Physiological phase

Vegetative apex

- Each buds

- No whole plant

Different interpretation of the same condition for each organ

Production cycles

• Programmed plants

• Extension of the production period• Fruit quality

Spring crop with frigo plants (North Italy)

I°yearWinterFallSummer

transplanting flower differentiation

Gro

wth

rate

1°

1°

1°

Frigo plant Plant architecture before winter

Stolonsgrowth

Flowersinduction

plant

5

Winter - spring crop s with fresh plant (South Italy)

I°yearWinterFallSummer

transplanting flower differentiation

Gro

wth

rate plant

Flowersinduction

crop crop

5°

1°

4°3

°

2°

Plast ic houseflowers

induction

Flowersinduction

Runner plant

Vegetative apex

Winter - spring crop s with fresh plant (South Italy)

I°yearWinterFallSummer

transplanting flower differentiation

Gro

wth

rate plant

Flowersinduction

crop crop

Flowersinduction

Spring Summer

crops/flower inductionII°year

Gro

wtr

ate

Fresh plant

5°

1°

4°3°

2°Nursery induction

Plastic house induction

- No dormancy- Continuous growth- Overlapping production

and diffe rentiation- No excess production

in one single period

Chilling (dormancy breaking)

Dormancy is

induced by high temperature and short day .

Chilling induced high v egetativ e growth in the f av ourable climatic condition (temp.> 10°C and long day )

0 C U132 CU432 CU

Savini 2003

Tray plant architecture on different conditions

Tray plant quality- Runner

- Transplanting 20 july (2001)

- Growth in natural condition until winter

3 different substrates

CV: Cireine and

Darselect

Substrate fertility

Savini et al. 2002

6

CireineG

F

FF

C

C

E

C

F

C

B

G

B

G

B

F

T H PT Ha

SubstrateSavini et al. 2002

Darselect

D

F

HD

F

H

D

F

H

F

G

F

TH PT Ha

SubstrateSavini et al. 2002

Substrato:TH = Blonde peat /brown peat/perlite (v/v/v)

CV: Gariguette

Mineral solution: 1,4 mS/cm continue or stop for 15 days

PLANTING

01/08

01/09

1,4 mS/cm

0,3 mS/cm

1,4 mS/cm

1,4 mS/cm

15/09

I° II° III°

01/10 15/10 01/11

NUTRITION

Savini et al. 2002

Mineral solution Stopping mineral solution

(Stress)

15 days after

treatment

Savini et al. 2002

G G EC

45 days after

treatment

Mineral solution Stopping mineral solution

(Stress)

Savini et al. 2002

T. VAN DELM (*), F. MASSETANI (**),

G. SAVINI (***), D. NERI (**)

PLANT ARCHITECT URE OF STRAWBERRY TRAYPLANTS IN RELATION TO NUT RIENT APPLICATION SYSTEM

(*) Proefcent rum Hoogst raten, Meerle, Belgium(**) Dept. Environment and Crop Science, Polytechnics University, Ancona- Italy(***) Coop. Santorsola, Pergine Val Sugana, Trento, Italy

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Elsanta tray plants from Italy

architecture November 2008

debladed minitray

Farmer B Farmer C Farmer EFarmer A Farmer D

tray tray tray

Elsanta tray plants from Belgium

architecture November 2008

Farmer B Farmer C Farmer EFarmer A Farmer D

1 2

3

3

3

3

4

4

4

4

44

4

4

2

Pa P m

Sm S m

Tm

Tm Tm

Tm Q m

Qm

Q m Qm Q m

Q m

Qm

Qm

L

Pa Pa

Sa

Sa Sa

Ta

Ta

Ta

Ta

Sa

1 2

3 4

1 – Primary f low er2 – Second ary flow er3 – Tertiary flower4 – Quate rnary flowe r

Flower differentiatio n

Meristem ( m ) o f primar y (P ) flo wer and leaf (L )

Meris tems o f seco ndary (S) flow er s

Meristem s o f tert iary (T) flow er

Meris tems o f quat ernary flow er s (Q )

The meristems of flowers of superiororder are formed on the axi s (a) of lower order ones

Inflo rescence

Elsanta medium and higth altitude nursery

y = -0,0557x2 + 5,6808x - 102,33R2 = 0,8566

y = -0,0335x2 + 2,8851x - 25,955R2 = 0,7808

10

20

30

40

50

60

10 2 0 3 0 40 50 60

architecture numbe r of f low ers

num

ber

of h

arve

sted

fru

its 400 m s l

1000 m sl

1:1

Savini et al. 2008

- the architect ure a nalysis is a n effective tool to study flower different iation physiology of the tray plants

- the architecture analysis of the tray plants ca n predict earline ss rank (first to last) and yie ld potential

- but not the y ield relate d to plan t s torage and f ut uregrowth cond itions. For th is pred iction the analysis needs to be repeated along the storage and dur ing firs t grow ing steps after transplan ting to de tect the impact on flower differentiation.

Conclusion

a ab

c

Arch

Group

A special thank to

Gianluca Savini PhDFrancesca Massetani PhDRamesh Gangatharan PhDPaolo ZucchiMarco GiacomelliTom Van Delm