Publications by authors named "Grant Thorp"
Background And Aims: Functional-structural plant (FSP) models have been widely used to understand the complex interactions between plant architecture and underlying developmental mechanisms. However, to obtain evidence that a model captures these mechanisms correctly, a clear distinction must be made between model outputs used for calibration and thus verification, and outputs used for validation. In pattern-oriented modelling (POM), multiple verification patterns are used as filters for rejecting unrealistic model structures and parameter combinations, while a second, independent set of patterns is used for validation.
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- Indirect evidence suggests that during the final stages of fruit development, water supply to fleshy fruits primarily comes from the phloem rather than the xylem, which may facilitate water loss.
- Research on kiwifruit in California and New Zealand revealed that both xylem and phloem are functional and contribute equally to the water supply during ripening.
- Results indicate that high transpiration rates in fruits, especially under dry conditions, can lead to issues like fruit shriveling, challenging previous assumptions about xylem involvement in water flow during ripening.
Background And Aims: Precocious flowering in apple trees is often associated with a smaller tree size. The hypothesis was tested that floral evocation in axillary buds, induced by dwarfing rootstocks, reduces the vigour of annual shoots developing from these buds compared with shoots developing from vegetative buds.
Methods: The experimental system provided a wide range of possible tree vigour using 'Royal Gala' scions and M.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigated how eight different clonal Actinidia rootstocks impact the development of scions—specifically, yellow kiwifruit—by examining shoot types and leaf area index (LAI).
- It classified axillary shoots from the scion as short, medium, or long and found that scions on low-vigor rootstocks produced fewer leaves and had more terminated shoots compared to those on vigorous rootstocks.
- The research concluded that while all rootstocks consistently affected shoot development, low-vigor rootstocks led to a higher proportion of slow-growing shoots, which terminated earlier in the season, thereby influencing future growth patterns.
We developed a framework for the quantitative description of Actinidia vine architecture, classifying shoots into three types (short, medium and long) corresponding to the modes of node number distribution and the presence/ absence of neoformed nodes. Short and medium shoots were self-terminated and had only preformed nodes. Based on the cut-off point between their two modes of node number distribution, short shoots were defined as having nine or less nodes, and medium shoots as having more than nine nodes.
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