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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Chikako Honda

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Guest Editor

Institute for Sustainable Ecosystem Services, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Nishitokyo, Tokyo 188-0002, Japan
Interests: plant physiology; pomology; postharvest; secondary metabolite

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are kindly inviting you to submit review or original research articles to a Special Issue of Forests on the Growth and Development of Fruit Trees.

The fruits of fruit trees, when served on the table, bring people a moment of happiness. Behind the scenes, there is now a requirement to produce higher-quality fruits more efficiently than before. A great deal of research has been done to address these requirements. One good example is the research and development of plant growth regulators. The effectiveness of many plant growth regulators is based on the action of plant hormones. The regulators are used in some fruit crop species, for example, for fruit enlargement, the inhibition of new branch elongation, the prevention of fruit drop, and the acceleration of fruit ripening. Another example is the use of rootstocks to control tree vigor. Dwarf rootstocks suppress tree growth and make the trees more compact, making it much easier to thin, harvest, and prune. In addition, the recent advancements in information and communication technology (ICT) has made it possible to efficiently obtain information on growth and development parameters for cultivation management. We are looking for review or research articles on such techniques that are or may be useful in production, as well as basic research articles leading to technical progress.

Dr. Chikako Honda
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

application of ICT
fruit growth
fruit ripening
plant growth regulators
rootstocks
tree shapes

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Jump to: Review

17 pages, 14974 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cone-Bearing Branches of Pinus koraiensis Are Not Carbon Autonomous during Cone Development

by Haibo Wu, Dongsheng Yin, Roberto Luis Salomón, Jesús Rodríguez-Calcerrada, Jianying Zhang, Peng Zhang and Hailong Shen

Forests 2021, 12(9), 1257; https://doi.org/10.3390/f12091257 - 16 Sep 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2050

Abstract

Cone development in conifer species is crucial to ensure sexual regeneration. A better understanding of carbon (C) source-sink relations at the branch level can guide strategies for improving resource allocation to reproduction. In particular, the evaluation of C relations between vegetative and reproductive branches is helpful to test whether tree branches are carbon autonomous. With this aim, we integrated girdling and defoliation treatments with ¹³C pulse labeling in situ to evaluate C autonomy in cone-bearing branches of P. koraiensis during the growing season. Girdling significantly reduced branch volumetric development, branch biomass, and non-structural carbohydrates across foliar, twig, and cone tissues; it also arrested cone development. Defoliation effects on these variables were minor, although they tended to increase with defoliation intensity. In addition, ¹³C increased by 4.5% and 45.4% after 4 h and 24 h of ¹³C labeling in unlabeled cone-bearing branches, respectively, indicating the C translocation from labeled vegetative branches. These results indicate that the cone-bearing branches are not C autonomous and that the development of female cones relies to a great extent on C import from neighboring branches. However, the amount of C translocated was largely dependent on manipulative alterations of the source-sink balance, thereby denoting extensive plasticity in the degree of branch C autonomy. These results shed light on the reproductive physiology of P. koraiensis. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in the Regulation of Fruit Tree Growth and Development)

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Review

Jump to: Research

11 pages, 2139 KiB

Open AccessReview

Molecular Mechanisms Regulating the Columnar Tree Architecture in Apple

by Kazuma Okada and Chikako Honda

Forests 2022, 13(7), 1084; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13071084 - 10 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2940

Abstract

The columnar apple cultivar ‘McIntosh Wijcik’ was discovered as a spontaneous mutant from the top of a ‘McIntosh’ tree in the early 1960s. ‘McIntosh Wijcik’ exhibits the columnar growth phenotype: compact and sturdy growth, short internodes, and very few lateral shoots. Classical genetic analysis revealed that the columnar growth phenotype of ‘McIntosh Wijcik’ is controlled by a single dominant gene, Co. This review focuses on the advances made toward understanding the molecular mechanisms of columnar growth in the last decade. Molecular studies have shown that an 8.2 kb insertion in the intergenic region of the Co locus is responsible for the columnar growth phenotype of ‘McIntosh Wijcik’, implying that the insertion affects the expression patterns of adjacent genes. Among the candidate genes in the Co region, the expression pattern of MdDOX-Co, putatively encoding 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase (DOX), was found to vary between columnar and non-columnar apples. Recent studies have found three functions of MdDOX-Co: facilitating bioactive gibberellin deficiency, increasing strigolactone levels, and positively regulating abscisic acid levels. Consequently, changes in these plant hormone levels caused by the ectopic expression of MdDOX-Co in the aerial organs of ‘McIntosh Wijcik’ can lead to dwarf trees with fewer lateral branches. These findings will contribute to the breeding and cultivation of new columnar apple cultivars with improved fruit quality. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in the Regulation of Fruit Tree Growth and Development)

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