A detailed description of flowering stages in olive tree in relation to side tree crown exposure

Phenological observations are a valuable source of information for investigating the relationship between the development of plant vegetation cycle and the climate and weather variation. The knowledge of the phenological behaviour of certain key indicator plant, and of the physical factors which are responsible of their phenological behaviour, might help modellers to define in more universal models for predicting phenological behaviour of the same species in different weather condition. The objective of this paper is to describe the phenological behaviour of olive tree in relation to the possible influence of the environmental factors such as exposure and temperature. The experiment was conducted in sub-urban area located in northern Sardinia, Italy. Phenological observation were performed in an olive orchard, cv Bosana, every day form March to June for two years. Three plants representative of the entire orchard were chosen. On each plant, three braches for each quadrant (North, West, South and East) were selected and labelled. In total, 12 clusters for each plant were observed during the reproductive season until fruit set stage. For each single flower of the cluster the following phenological stages based on the BBCH scale system were observed: flower cluster growing (BBCH 53-57), differentiation of the inflorescence (BBCH 57-59), first flower open (BBCH 60), full flowering (BBCH 65), majority of petals fallen (BBCH 68), fruit set (BBCH 69).