3 Results
3.1 Results with single node cuttings
The results of the preliminary experiment with single node cuttings of seven cultivars are shown in Fig. 2. With 4 weeks of chilling at 2 °C, only cuttings of ‘Ben Tron’ and ‘Murmanschanka’ had a high proportion of buds that reached stage 2 in less than 16 days. All the other cultivars exhibited varying degrees of erratic bud burst, and needed on average of 21 to 25 days to reach stage 2. When the chilling period was extended to 6 or more weeks, all healthy buds were breaking and strongly advanced in all cultivars except Narve Viking. With more than 8 weeks of chilling, the advancement of budding levelled off in all cultivars except for Narve Viking which was notably slow and displayed an advancement of bud break with increasing chilling time all the way up to 20 weeks.