Gravimorphism in Trees

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Abstract
Experiments with several varieties of fruit tree have shown that, in apple, growing the whole tree horizontally had a marked stimulatory effect on flowering as compared with vertically grown trees, but in similar experiments with cherry, plum, and blackcurrant the position of the tree relative to gravity had little effect on flowering. Training of individual branches horizontally had no significant effect on the flowering of any of the fruit tree varieties tested. By contrast, tying the upwardly growing branches of young Japanese larch trees into horizontal and downwardly directed positions led to pronounced increases in the initiation of male cones, especially in favourable years. The male flower buds occur typically on all sides of trailing shoots and on the lower sides of horizontal shoots, and it is shown experimentally that the criterion is the physically and not morphologically lower side. In birch there appears to be no increase in flowering when gravimorphic treatments are applied.

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