Garden with Insight v1.0 Help: floral initiation

Floral initiation is the stage of plant reproductive development in which plant meristems (buds) are converting to the creation of reproductive structures. For many plants there are distinctly different requirements for the progress of this stage than for the induction or triggering of flowering that starts the initiation process going. Floral initiation can be affected by temperature (and by temperature ranges over the day, not just mean temperature), by water stress, and by nutrient availability (more of some nutrients speeds up floral initiation, and more of other nutrients slows it down).

In this simulation floral initiation is modeled using the most common determinator of the speed of floral initiation -- temperature. Thermal units are accumulated towards a floral initiation threshold (a parameter) in the same way photothermal units are accumulated for floral induction. Note that we use the same minimum, optimal and maximum temperatures for floral induction and initiation; this simplification is unrealistic but qualitatively reasonable. Once the floral initiation threshold is reached the plant moves into the phase of allocation of resources to floral structures (inflorescences, flowers and fruits). Note that we do not simulate pollination; we assume pollination to be perfect in each plant.

How it works:
floral initiation