Apple fruit growth is the result of several factors: inherent demand (relative sink strength) of the fruit (defined by the demands for cell division and expansion growth, etc.), carbon assimilation by the source leaves (source strength), and the resulting allocation to the organ in question. It is thus a complex process involving source–sink interactions. In the present study, we designed an experimental system in which parts of fruit-bearing branches of two apple cultivars (“Fuji” and “Ariane”) were isolated from the rest of the tree by girdling and then subjected to specific pruning and fruit removal treatments to create a wide range of global (branch-level) source–sink ratios. We monitored not only fruit kinetics but also photosynthesis as a response to light in leaves of the three different shoot types (i.e., the rosette, the bourse, and the vegetative shoots) to 1) study the impact of source–sink distance on carbon partitioning between fruits within the same branch and 2) to investigate the impact of source/sink ratio on fruit growth and leaf photosynthetic activity. Our results indicate 1) no significant differences among lateral fruits belonging to different ranks, and this independent of source availability; 2) that a modification of the source/sink ratio seems to be compensated by an alteration of the photosynthetic rate of leaves, with stronger and weaker values obtained for lower and higher ratios, respectively. Moreover, our results seem to suggest that two growing sinks together will upregulate photosynthesis rate more strongly than one growing sink does on its own, and this with the same leaf area per fruit. These results are discussed, and some hypotheses are put forward to explain them.

Understanding the role of branch architecture in carbon production and allocation is essential to gain more insight into the complex process of assimilate partitioning in fruit trees. This mini review reports on the current knowledge of the role of branch architecture in carbohydrate production and partitioning in apple. The first-order carrier branch of apple illustrates the complexity of branch structure emerging from bud activity events and encountered in many fruit trees. Branch architecture influences carbon production by determining leaf exposure to light and by affecting leaf internal characteristics related to leaf photosynthetic capacity. The dynamics of assimilate partitioning between branch organs depends on the stage of development of sources and sinks. The sink strength of various branch organs and their relative positioning on the branch also affect partitioning. Vascular connections between branch organs determine major pathways for branch assimilate transport. We propose directions for employing a modeling approach to further elucidate the role of branch architecture on assimilate partitioning.

Superficial scald is one of the most serious postharvest physiological disorders that can affect apples after a prolonged cold storage period. This study investigated the impact of pre-and post-harvest climatic variations on superficial scald in a susceptible apple cultivar. Fruit batches with contrasting phenotypes for superficial scald incidence were identified among several years of "Granny Smith" fruit production. The "low scald" year pre-harvest climate was characterised by a warm period followed by a sudden decrease in temperature, playing the part of an in vivo acclimation to cold storage. This was associated with many abiotic stress responsive genes which were induced in fruit peel. In particular 48 Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs) and 5 Heat Shock transcription Factors (HSFs) were strongly induced at harvest when scald incidence was low. For "high scald" year, a post-harvest acclimation of 1 week was efficient in reducing scald incidence. Expression profiles of stress related genes were affected by the acclimation treatment and indicate fruit physiological adaptations to cold storage. The identified stressresponsive genes, and in particular HSPs, could be useful indicators of the fruit physiological status to predict the risk of scald occurrence as early as harvest. Scientific RepoRtS |(2020) 10:6180 | https://doi.