Delayed chilling appears to counteract flowering advances of apricot in southern UK

Abstract

Temperatures are rising across the globe, and the UK is no exception. Spring phenology of perennial fruit crops is to a large extent determined by temperature during effective chilling (endo-dormancy) and heat accumulation (eco-dormancy) periods. We used the apricot flowering records of the UK National Fruit Collections (NFC) to determine the influence of temperature trends over recent decades (1960–2014) on apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) flowering time. Using Partial Least Squares (PLS) regression, we determined the respective periods for calculating chill and heat accumulation.

Publication
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, (237-238), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.02.017