Understanding adaptability in different climates

Apple trees usually want to grow up. Horticultural systems were engineered around the trees’ innate apical dominance, but without winter chill to trigger the system reboot that takes place during dormancy, they develop more basal dominance. “The buds at the top don’t wake up like they should,” said Esmé Louw, chair of the preharvest horticultural science department at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.