Recent climate changes due to global warming are gradually introducing adverse circumstances for winter survival of temperate fruit trees. Particularly, late winter or early spring thaws followed by hard freezes can cause severe injury to deacclimated flower buds. Thus, the selection of later or slower deacclimating cultivars is needed to avoid frost injury in late winter or early spring. This study was performed to investigate relationship between cold hardiness and bud development under an experimental deacclimation condition for 10 Prunus persica cultivars (Aikawanakajima, Daewol, Izumi Hakuto, Janghowon Hwangdo, Kiraranokiwami, Mihong, Misshong, Soomee, Suhong, and Sun Gold). The rate of deacclimation was not correlated with hardiness before the deacclimation treatment. On the other hand, a strong positive correlation was found between cold hardiness and stage of bud opening.

• Sewon Oh(Department of Horticulture, Chungbuk National University)
• Hyunsuk Shin(Department of Horticulture, Chungbuk National University)
• Jungyeon Won(Department of Horticulture, Chungbuk National University)
• Youngjae Oh(Department of Horticulture, Chungbuk National University)
• Seolah Kim(Department of Horticulture, Chungbuk National University)
• Daeil Kim(Department of Horticulture, Chungbuk National University) Corresponding Author