Biodiv Sci ›› 2008, Vol. 16 ›› Issue (6): 570-577.  DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1003.2008.08049

• Original Papers • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Seed dormancy and release of grapes from different proveniences

Yangying Gan1,2, Shaohua Li1, Songquan Song1, Weiqing Wang1, Hongyan Cheng1,*()   

  1. 1 Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093
    2 Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
  • Received:2008-03-04 Accepted:2008-10-31 Online:2008-11-20 Published:2008-11-20
  • Contact: Hongyan Cheng
  • About author:* E-mail: hycheng@ibcas.ac.cn

Abstract:

To investigate dormancy and release mechanisms of grape seeds, we compared seed morphological characteristics and germination behavior of different grape varieties and their dormancy release under different conditions including an alternative temperature change simulation for a season cycle. The grape varieties tested included species introduced from three distribution centers (America, Europe-Asia and East-Asia) and their cross breeds. Seed dormancy of all varieties was attributed to physiological dormancy, but varied in degree of dormancy. The dormancy-releasing requirements of different varieties also differed, correlating to their genetic backgrounds. As a whole, seeds of Europe-Asia species and East-Asia species exhibited a lower degree of dormancy, compared to a relatively high degree of dormancy for American species. For Europe-Asia species, East-Asia species and their cross breeds, seed dormancy was effectively broken by cold stratification (5ºC) and partially broken by alternative temperature stratificationviz. 20ºC (14 h) /10ºC (10 h) and 30ºC (14 h) /20ºC (10 h) for two months. As for American species and cross breeds with Europe-Asia species, seed dormancy could only be broken by more than six-month cold stratification; neither alternative temperature stratification nor warm stratification (25ºC) affected seed dormancy release. Experiments simulating seasonal alternative changes further showed that seed dormancy degrees were related to their proveniences and adaptations to environment. Our results provide basic data for germplasm introduction and breeding of grapes.

Key words: Vitis seed, dormancy, genetic background