XVI International Botanical Congess

In peach mature plants, buds are frequently clustered in three (triple bud) on one-year-old shoots. The two side buds usually develop into flowers, whereas the central bud has a vegetative fate. We characterised the triple bud meristems through morpho-cytological and molecular markers. Differences observed in terms of structural features (phenol contents, nuclear and nucleolar ratios) and metabolic activity (cytokinin localisation and ribosomal protein genes expression) during pre-inductive, inductive and early differentiation suggest that the two types of meristems perceive and respond to phase change signals in a differentiated manner.