Manish Kumar, Arumugam Harish, Sundaresan Srivignesh, Subramanian Manivannan, Dinakar Challabathula, Shanmugam Kathiresan and Alagarsamy Ramesh Kumar
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased public awareness of the health and nutritional benefits associated with various horticultural crops, including fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants. Consequently, these high-value crops have become integral components of daily diets. However, many perennial horticultural crops are typically seasonal, with fruits available only during specific periods of the year. This leads to a substantial demand for these crops during off-season months. Notably, late and early maturing varieties command higher prices in the market due to an overall decline in production during off-seasons. Off-season cultivation offers economic benefits by increasing farmer income, improving living standards, and ensuring year-round consumer access to these essential crops. Consequently, researchers have turned their attention to the importance of producing seasonal horticultural crops outside their main seasons to meet off-season demand. Over the past few decades, numerous studies have focused on the flowering and fruiting mechanisms of perennial horticultural crops, exploring techniques to manipulate them based on specific requirements. The authors of this article provide an overview of the flowering mechanisms of perennial horticultural crops, delving into various techniques for manipulating flowering periods. These techniques include considerations of temperature, photoperiod, chemicals, hormones, nutrition, agronomic practices, and advanced technologies such as molecular breeding and CRISPR/CAS. The hope is that this article contributes valuable insights for researchers in the field of off-season crop production.