Promotion of flowering in potted white spruce grafts by root pruning: its relationship to drought and shoot elongation
Flowering and shoot-elongation responses by potted white spruce (Piceaglauca (Moench) Voss) grafts to root pruning (RP) and drought, and to RP applied at different stages of root and shoot development, were investigated in separate experiments. Results suggest that RP does not simulate drought. Differences in midday needle water potentials between RP and non RP grafts were relatively small (0.1–0.2 MPa) and short lived following treatment. Furthermore, whereas RP only affected (promoted) female flowering, drought only affected (inhibited) male flowering. Shoot elongation was less inhibited by RP at initiation of new root growth in spring, compared with RP at the late vegetative bud swell stage and at the early stage of rapid shoot elongation, when root activity is naturally declining. However, the flowering response was independent of time of RP. The early RP treatment enhanced shoot elongation in some clones and inhibited it in others, and the effect was not related to the clone's flowering response to treatment. These results are discussed in relation to the hypothesis that in small, potted trees, at least, actively growing roots are an important source of certain gibberellins that are essential for both shoot elongation and cone-bud differentiation. Accordingly, RP may inhibit or enhance shoot elongation, depending on whether the supply of gibberellins from roots newly regenerated following RP exceeds that from existing roots removed in treatment. Flowering occurs when the supply of gibberellins exceeds some threshold level either because of reduced vegetative demand (due to water-stress effects) or increased synthesis by roots.