Base temperature and phyllochron in two olive cultivars

The objective of this work was to estimate the base temperature for leaf appearance and the phyllochron for two cultivars of Olea europaea L. A field experiment was carried out in the experimental area of the Agricultural Research Corporation of Minas Gerais, Maria da Fe, MG. The experimental design was completely randomized with two cultivars and six planting dates. Base temperature (Tb) was estimated by the minimum mean square error (MSE) and the phyllochron was estimated by the inverse of the slope of regression between main stem leaf number and accumulated thermal time. The estimated base temperature was 10.5 degrees C for Arbequina and 11 degrees C for MGS ASC315. The phyllochron was statistically different only between cultivars, lower for 'Arbequina' (21.7 degrees C day(-1) leaf(-1)) compared to 'MGS ASC315' (41.6 degrees C day(-1) leaf(-1)).