Time-to-event analysis to evaluate dormancy status of single-bud cuttings: an example for grapevines

BACKGROUND: The reduced growth of plants during the winter causes a lack in the perceptibility of the phenological events making challenging the study of dormancy. For deciduous crops, dormancy is generally determined by evaluating budbreak of single-node cuttings that are exposed to conditions suitable for growth. However, the absence of a statistical basis for analyzing and interpreting the budbreak behavior evaluated as the percent budbreak, the average time to budbreak and the time to reach 50% budbreak, has caused inconsistent and contradictory criteria to identify the dormancy status of different deciduous crops. RESULTS: In this study, a method was developed to analyze the duration between sampling and budbreak of single-node cuttings and to estimate the dormancy status for grapevines (Vitis vinifera L.) based on the time-to-event distribution of the observations. This method estimates the probability curve of budbreak for each sample and classifies each curve into paradormancy, endodormancy, and ecodormancy according to the significance when compared to a sample curve estimated from cuttings collected during paradormancy and referred to as “reference.” CONCLUSION: The approach described in this study provided a comparison of the budbreak distribution of cuttings collected during distinct phases with a confidence of 95%. It also allowed the estimation of the date of occurrence of the dormancy stages for two grapevine cultivars ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ and ‘Chardonnay,’ based on the variability within the sampling season rather than on fixed arbitrary criteria. This approach can also be used to analyze budbreak data of single-node cuttings from other common deciduous crops. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13007-018-0361-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.