Page 20 - FRUTAS DEL TRÓPICO

20 Frutas del trópico

flushes are vegetative. Individual stems typically produce only one reproductive flush per year.
If synchronized, the flush will occur at once in all stems throughout the canopy. More often

than not, however, flushes occur in sections of canopy instead of the whole in trees grown the

tropics, and hence may produce flowers in one section on one occasion and in other sections

on other occasions until the entire canopy has flowered.

Although the subject of this article is management of flowering, one must first recogni-

ze that initiation of shoot growth on resting stems is the first event that must occur in order

to produce flowering (Davenport, 1990, 2000, 2003; Davenport and Nuñez-Elisea, 1997).

Management of flowering, thus, also entails management of shoot initiation. The reader is

encouraged to refer to the above-cited review articles in order to fully appreciate the reasons
for implementing the management practices described here. They describe the interactions

of phytohormones and environmental cues that regulate flowering or vegetative growth. The

following Figure 1 diagrammatically summarizes those interactions.

Shoot initiation, or bud break, is driven by different factors than those regulating induc-

tion events that determine whether developing shoots will be vegetative or reproductive. It

is thought to involve the interactive ratio in buds of accumulated cytokinins from roots with

declining auxin production and transport from leaves of increasing age (Davenport, 2000).
Frequent flush events occur in young trees and in mature trees in conditions of high nitrogen

levels and an abundance of water. Other factors that stimulate initiation of shoot development

include stem pruning, defoliation, foliar nitrogen sprays, and ethylene.

Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas