Vernalization Requirements for Flowering of Jointed Goatgrass (Aegilops cylindrica)

Abstract

Jointed goatgrass (Aegilops cylindrica Host. ♯3 AEGCY) has a quantitative requirement for vernalization in order to flower. In greenhouse and field studies, increasing periods of vernalization progressively reduced the number of days needed for plants to mature following transfer from the cold treatment to favorable growing conditions. Plants that had been vernalized at 3 ± 2 C for 8 weeks as imbibed seed took 120 days to flower following transfer to the greenhouse. Unvernalized controls flowered 197 to 222 days after planting in the greenhouse. Lengthening periods of vernalization from 2 to 8 weeks increased the number of seedheads per plant and dry weight per seedhead. Vernalized plants partitioned more dry matter into seedheads than unvernalized controls. The ratio of seedhead dry weight to vegetative shoot dry weight increased with duration of vernalization, even though vernalization did not alter total shoot dry-matter production. In field studies, plants that were established in the fall flowered sooner and more synchronously after resumption of growth in the spring than those that were planted in the spring and flowered in the summer. Plants seeded after May failed to flower in the same summer.