Vernalization

• It is the acquisition of a plant’s ability to flower or germinate in the spring by exposure to the prolonged cold of winter. After vernalization, plants have acquired the ability to flower, but they may require additional seasonal cues or weeks of growth before they will flower.
• Chouard (1960) defined vernalization as the acquisition or acceleration of the ability to flower by a chilling treatment.’ Thus, a vernalizing cold treatment does not initiate flower primordia directly but creates the capacity for subsequent flowering.
• Vernalization does not refer to the breaking of dormancy by cold, such as the release of pre-formed floral buds after chilling or the promotion of seed germination by cold (stratification). The vernalization response can be facultative or obligate.