No abstract

Shoot elongation and female flowering response were assessed for gibberellin A4/7 (GA4/7) and root-pruning (RP) treatments in 9- and 10-year-old Douglas-fir (Pseudotsugamenziesii (Mirb.) Franco) seedlings of families with good- and poor-flowering histories. In families with a poor-flowering history, stem injections of GA4/7 significantly enhanced elongation of third-whorl terminal shoots but produced no flowering response. In families with a good-flowering history, GA4/7 treatment had no effect on shoot elongation but did result in a significant increase in seed-cone buds. In contrast, root-pruning significantly retarded shoot growth in families with both good- and poor-flowering histories and was also the single most effective treatment for enhancing flowering. Combined, GA4/7 plus RP had a synergistic effect on flowering and GA4/7 partially overcame the inhibition of shoot growth caused by RP alone. These results are consistent with a hypothesis that exogenous and endogenous gibberellins are used preferentially for vegetative growth processes, with increased flowering occurring only after a threshold concentration of effector gibberellins is reached.

In two seed orchard trials, profuse female flowering was induced in young, but ontogenetieally mature grafts of inherently poor-flowering clones (1979) and in 9-year-old seedling-origin trees of both good- and poor-flowering families (1981) of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsugamenziesii (Mirb.) Franco) by the cultural treatment of root-pruning in conjunction with stem injections of the gibberellin A4 and A7 (GA4/7) mixture. Promotion of male flowering, however, was confined to the more sexually mature grafts. As an individual treatment in the 1981 study, root-pruning was more effective than GA4/7, particularly for the poor-flowering families which did not respond well to GA4/7 alone. The two treatments combined had a highly synergistic effect on both male and female flowering, the synergism being relatively greater for the poor-flowering than for the good-flowering families. Although GA4/7 was not tested alone on grafted propagules, its use with root-pruning enhanced an already significant increase in seed- and pollen-cone buds from root-pruning alone by 540 and 92%, respectively. These and subsequent trials have shown root-pruning +GA4/7 to be a most effective cone-bud enhancement treatment for use in young Douglas-fir breeding and seed production orchards.

The relative importance of cell division and cell elongation to shoot elongation and the anatomical changes in vegetative terminal apices were assessed for 9- and 10-year-old seedlings of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsugamenziesii (Mirb.) Franco) in response to two effective cone-induction treatments, gibberellin A4/7 (GA4/7) and root-pruning (RP). Root-pruning was done in mid-April at the start of vegetative bud swelling and GA treatments were begun at vegetative bud flushing in mid-May and continued until early July. Shoot elongation before flushing resulted primarily from cell divisions and was not affected by the RP treatment. Shoot elongation after flushing resulted primarily from cell expansion which was reduced by RP treatments. Root-pruning significantly slowed mitotic activity, apical growth, and development of vegetative terminal buds from mid-June through mid-July. Apical growth then resumed during leaf initiation and the final number of leaf primordia initiated was not affected. This resulted in a delay of 2 to 4 weeks in the transition from bud-scale to leaf initiation. Retarded terminal vegetative apices anatomically resembled latent axillary apices but were never completely inhibited. GA + RP had the same effect as RP. GA4/7 alone had no effect on shoot or apical development. These results show that RP and GA + RP significantly retard shoot elongation and terminal bud development but still allow normal development of vegetative terminal buds. Retardation of bud development by a few weeks shifts the critical morphogenetic phase of transition from bud scale to leaf initiation to a later time when endogenous and environmental conditions may differ from the normal.

The anatomy, mitotic frequency, size, and total insoluble carbohydrate histochemistry was studied in axillary apices from 9- and 10-year-old Douglas-fir (Pseudotsugamenziesii (Mirb.) Franco) trees after cone induction treatments of root-pruning and (or) stem injections of a gibberellin A4 and A7 (GA4/7) mixture. Axillary buds were initiated at the time of root-pruning, but root-pruning treatment had no effect on axillary bud initiation. Axillary apices from control and gibberellin-treated trees were similar and followed the normal sequence of bud-scale initiation, differentiation, and leaf initiation (described previously) and no cone buds differentiated. Early development of axillary apices from root-pruned and root-pruned, gibberellin-treated trees was normal, but development became retarded near the time of vegetative bud flush. Retarded apices were small with low mitotic frequency and developed many features characteristics of latent apices. Retardation of axillary apices continued until mid-July when normal development resumed and apices differentiated into reproductive buds or vegetative buds, or became latent. The trees in which the greatest retardation of apical development occurred during lateral shoot elongation produced the most cone buds. These results are discussed in relation to hypotheses proposed to explain how cultural and gibberellin treatments affect cone induction in the Pinaceae.