Growing deciduous fruits, chilling and dormancy breaking research under low chill conditions

This paper contains an overview of the experiments carried out at the experimental areas of the Cukurova University both in Adana (subtropical) and in Pozanti during 1986 and 2014. The main aim of the research was to grow deciduous fruit trees under subtropical climatic conditions (Adana-Cukurova) and compare the data of subtropical conditions with the data of the continental climatic conditions (Pozanti). The studies began with an experiment on the physiology of dormancy and the effects of different methods on breaking dormancy of peaches and nectarines under subtropical conditions. The experiments continued on other temperate fruit species grown with insufficient chilling accumulation. Results of these experiments showed increasing negative effects of climate change on temperate fruit trees under subtropical conditions of the Mediterranean region. The chilling requirements of the experimented species and cultivars and the chilling accumulation in the studied areas were determined. Alternating chilling hours, dormancy release chemicals, evaporative cooling method applied to break dormancy. Even low chill cherries could grow and set reasonable fruits with the application of some practices under limited chilling conditions. However, with the global warming, some other problems raised such as multiple and twin fruits, because of the very high temperatures during the physiological and morphological differentiation periods of the buds. To solve this situation, the experiments carried out using shading, fogging and kaolin applications.