Preharvest factors for optimal sweet cherry production

Fruit development: water, crop load, canopy, and nutrition

Sweet cherry fruit growth is commonly described as a double-sigmoid pattern organized into three physiological phases.

Phase I is dominated by cell division and initial mesocarp growth; during Phase II, external growth slows while embryo development and endocarp hardening proceed; and in Phase III, or the fruit-enlargement phase, intense cell expansion resumes, associated with water influx, sugar accumulation, color development, and commercial ripening.

This sequence explains why irrigation, crop load, canopy light environment, and nutrition do not exert the same effect across phases: an intervention that is beneficial in one window may be irrelevant or even counterproductive in another (Wani et al., 2014; Vignati et al., 2024).

During the enlargement phase, fruit vascular dynamics undergo a critical shift.

Water management

Xylem water flow progressively decreases until it becomes almost negligible at maturity, whereas phloem contribution increases and becomes the dominant pathway for water and assimilate entry.

This transition reduces the capacity of mature fruit to buffer abrupt changes in water status and helps explain its high sensitivity to water fluctuations during the final stages of development (Brüggenwirth et al., 2016).

Water management during ripening must be interpreted from this physiology.

Severe water deficit can limit growth, reduce fruit size, and compromise commercial quality; conversely, excessive water availability or abrupt alternation between deficit and rehydration can create conditions that predispose fruit to microcracking and cracking.

Irrigation scheduling

In mountain agroecosystems, elevation and irrigation scheduling condition tree water status, phenology, and fruit size, reinforcing the need to adjust water management to cultivar, rootstock, soil, and local atmospheric demand (Nieto-Serrano et al., 2026).

In addition, vascular contribution to water supply may participate in certain cracking types, especially when mature fruit, high varietal susceptibility, and rainfall or rehydration events coincide (Measham et al., 2010; Knoche et al., 2025).

Irrigation scheduling should therefore be linked to phenological stage, soil water storage, evaporative demand, tree water status, and rainfall forecast.

In practice, the highest risk is often not a single level of water availability, but a sequence of stress and rapid rehydration during the late enlargement and ripening period.

Crop load

Monitoring should aim to reduce abrupt physiological oscillations while maintaining sufficient water supply for fruit growth and canopy function.

Crop load and canopy architecture condition source-sink relationships and fruit microclimate.

High crop load increases competition among fruit, can reduce fruit size, and can modify soluble-solids accumulation; excessively low crop load, however, can favor vegetative vigor, shading, and imbalances in resource distribution.

Pruning, canopy design, and crop-load regulation must be calibrated according to cultivar, rootstock, vigor, water availability, and commercial target, without extrapolating responses obtained in one training system, elevation, or protection infrastructure to all orchards.

Source-sink balance

The relevant target is not crop reduction per se, but a functional balance between fruit number, leaf area, light interception, and assimilate supply (Whiting & Ophardt, 2005; Wani et al., 2014; Blanco et al., 2019; Penzel et al., 2020; Nieto-Serrano et al., 2026).

This source-sink interpretation has direct management consequences.

Estimated daily leaf-area demand per fruit increases during development and can reach high values during Stage III, with cultivar-specific estimates reported for 'Bellise' and 'Regina'.

Crop-load regulation, blossom thinning, and fruit-load adjustment can improve fruit size and selected quality attributes in some systems, yet responses are not universal and may vary with cultivar, rootstock, fruiting density, canopy capacity, cover system, and market price structure.

Mineral nutrition

Crop-load decisions should therefore be made against a defined commercial target rather than as a generic thinning prescription (Whiting & Ophardt, 2005; Einhorn et al., 2011; Penzel et al., 2020; González-Villagra et al., 2024; Parveze et al., 2024).

Mineral nutrition should be interpreted functionally by phenological stage.

Potassium participates in sugar transport, osmotic regulation, and quality during fruit enlargement, making its availability particularly relevant during Phase III.

Calcium contributes to cell-wall integrity and to reduced epidermal cell-wall swelling, although its low mobility toward the fruit and wash-off by rain limit the effectiveness of late applications.

Nutrient response

Responses to foliar treatments must therefore be interpreted according to formulation, timing, coverage, cultivar, cuticle, environmental conditions, and actual wetting risk (Wani et al., 2014; Schumann et al., 2022; Kafle et al., 2016; Varaldo & Giacalone, 2025a).

Table 5 summarizes the nutrients most relevant to fruit development and quality.

The relationship among nutrition, firmness, and cracking must be formulated cautiously.

Foliar calcium and potassium treatments can improve mechanical properties and selected quality attributes under specific experimental conditions, but they should not be presented as a universal solution to cracking.

Cracking nutrition

Their effect depends on cultivar, maturity stage, cuticular susceptibility, previous microcracking, water management, formulation, rain wash-off, and actual wetting pressure.

In this section, nutrition is therefore addressed as functional support for growth and quality; the specific physiology of rain-induced cracking is developed in Section 8 (Schumann et al., 2022; Kafle et al., 2016; Knoche et al., 2025; Varaldo & Giacalone, 2025a).

Table 5. Key nutrients by phenological stage and production function

Note: Nutrient management should be supported by leaf and soil analysis, local diagnosis, cultivar, rootstock, and current regulations.

Ripening, rainfall, cracking, and protected production systems

Ripening concentrates commercial value and vulnerability.

In this final phase, the fruit expresses color, size, firmness, soluble solids, acidity, and flavor, but it also becomes more sensitive to rain, hail, prolonged surface wetness, cracking, microcracking, and associated rots.

Cracking incidence and type vary according to genotype, season, maturity stage, and environmental conditions during the rainfall event, explaining why the same precipitation event can generate very different responses among cultivars, plots, or years (Measham et al., 2009; Blanco et al., 2019; Rojas et al., 2021).

Rain-induced cracking should not be interpreted as the simple consequence of massive water uptake and uniform increases in fruit turgor.

Surface wetness

Available experimental evidence indicates that localized surface wetness is a critical trigger: water retained on the skin preferentially penetrates through microcracks and cuticular discontinuities, promoting localized damage in epidermal and hypodermal tissues that can propagate into visible cracks (Winkler et al., 2020; Knoche et al., 2022).

Vascular contribution can be relevant for specific crack types, particularly side cracking, but it should be formulated as a complementary, context-dependent pathway rather than as the sole explanation of the phenomenon (Measham et al., 2010).

Cracking susceptibility integrates genetic properties, maturity stage, fruit size and firmness, cuticle characteristics, previous microcracking, tissue calcium, and surface wetness duration.

This integration connects the variability observed among genotypes and seasons with local mechanisms of skin-integrity loss.

Zipper model

In full-sib families contrasting for cracking susceptibility, tolerance has been associated with cuticular traits, microcracking, and calcium, reinforcing the need to interpret cracking as a skin-structure problem rather than merely as a general fruit water response (Measham et al., 2009; Knoche et al., 2025).

The “zipper” model provides a mechanistic framework for explaining damage propagation.

According to this model, surface wetness and microcracking facilitate localized water entry, lysis of epidermal or subepidermal cells, and release of organic acids, especially malate, into the apoplast.

This process can extract calcium from neighboring cell walls, increase wall swelling, reduce cell adhesion, and promote progressive unzipping of the skin.

Mechanistic sequence

The model should not be treated as a closed explanation for all cultivars and conditions, but as an integrative hypothesis linking cuticle, surface water, calcium, cell wall, and crack propagation (Knoche & Winkler, 2019; Schumann et al., 2022; Knoche et al., 2022).

Figure 4 synthesizes this mechanistic sequence and its applied interpretation.

Figure 4. Proposed mechanistic sequence for rain-induced cracking in sweet cherry.

The scheme synthesizes the transition from surface wetness and cuticular microcracking to localized water entry, cell lysis, malate release into the apoplast, local calcium extraction, wall swelling, loss of cell adhesion, and visible crack propagation.

Mitigation strategies

Mitigation strategies must act on several points of the system: reducing fruit-surface wetness duration, avoiding abrupt water-status oscillations, maintaining a ventilated canopy, decreasing direct exposure to rain or hail, and applying nutrition programs or preharvest treatments only when diagnosis and local evidence support them.

Foliar calcium or potassium applications can improve mechanical properties and reduce cracking susceptibility in specific trials, but their effectiveness depends on formulation, dose, timing, coverage, rain wash-off, cultivar, and maturity stage (Kafle et al., 2016; Schumann et al., 2022; Varaldo & Giacalone, 2025a).

Similarly, treatments with abscisic acid, methyl jasmonate, or melatonin have shown favorable effects in specific contexts, although they should be considered strategies conditioned by cultivar, phenological stage, dose, regulatory status, and actual rainfall pressure (Balbontín et al., 2018; Ruiz-Aracil et al., 2024).

Because surface wetness is central to cracking risk, monitoring technologies can add value when they estimate fruit wetness rather than only rainfall.

Protected systems

Thermal-RGB imagery combined with in-field weather sensing has produced cultivar-specific wetness prediction models, illustrating how fruit-surface temperature and local microclimate can be integrated into decision support for drying, spraying, or rain-protection strategies (Ranjan et al., 2022).

Plastic covers, high tunnels, and other protected systems reduce direct contact between rainfall and fruit and can decrease losses from cracking or hail.

However, they are not neutral structures: they modify radiation, temperature, relative humidity, ventilation, vigor, ripening, quality, and disease management.

High tunnels have been shown to protect against rainfall and modify physiological and production variables, whereas forcing systems under cover can alter radiation, temperature, firmness, soluble solids, and bioactive compounds.

Production system

Recent work under Mediterranean conditions has also shown that roof and high-tunnel systems can reduce incident radiation, modify canopy-level microclimate and tree water status, advance harvest, and affect color, firmness, acidity, phenolics, and antioxidant capacity.

Physical protection should therefore be evaluated as a modification of the production system and as a risk-management investment, not merely as a barrier against an isolated weather event (Schmitz-Eiberger & Blanke, 2012; Blanco et al., 2019; Rojas et al., 2021; Palma et al., 2023).

Climate change and adaptation of the production system

Climate change modifies the agroclimatic framework in which sweet cherry production is built because it simultaneously affects winter chill accumulation, spring heat, phenological synchrony, and the frequency of extreme events during bloom, fruit set, and ripening.

In sweet cherry, warming does not necessarily imply a simple phenological advance.

Dormancy risk

When winter chill is insufficient, endodormancy release can be incomplete, resulting in irregular budbreak, uneven bloom, and lower production stability.

Conversely, when chilling requirements are satisfied, a warmer spring can accelerate heat accumulation and advance bloom, increasing exposure of reproductive organs to late frost.

Adaptation therefore cannot be based on a single thermal indicator; it must consider the interaction among chill, forcing, cultivar, bloom date, and local phenological risk (Fadón et al., 2021; Fadón et al., 2023).

Climate vulnerability is strongly cultivar-specific.

Cultivar viability

Studies of agroclimatic requirements in Spanish and commercial cultivars show that genotypes differ in chill and heat needs and in their capacity to maintain regular bloom under warming scenarios.

Projections under Mediterranean-continental conditions in the Ebro Valley indicate that, by 2050, most evaluated cultivars may still maintain reasonable climatic viability, although cultivars with higher chilling requirements show earlier risks of maladaptation.

Toward the end of the century, especially under high-emission scenarios, even lower-chill cultivars may be at risk of failing to satisfy their chilling needs in some climate models.

These results should not be extrapolated without regional calibration, but they emphasize that cultivar selection and agroclimatic zoning will become increasingly critical decisions (Fadón et al., 2023; Santolaria et al., 2026).

Structural adaptation

Structural adaptation begins before planting.

It includes site, elevation, aspect, cultivar, rootstock, water availability, canopy design, and protection infrastructure.

In mountain agroecosystems such as the Jerte Valley, physiological and meteorological measurements show that higher elevation can reduce evaporative demand, improve tree water status, delay phenology, and extend the fruit-development period, favoring larger commercial fruit sizes compared with lower areas exposed to stronger combined heat and water stress.

This evidence supports the value of elevation as a local adaptation factor, although its use must be interpreted within each production system and its limitations in soil, slope, water, accessibility, and frost risk (Nieto-Serrano et al., 2026).

Protection infrastructure

Protection infrastructure is part of structural adaptation, but it should not be considered neutral.

High tunnels and plastic covers can reduce losses from rain or hail and modify maturity date, but they also alter radiation, temperature, relative humidity, ventilation, vigor, quality, and disease management.

Their usefulness depends on climate risk, cultivar, training system, installation costs, management logistics, and market target.

Investment decisions in covers or other protection technologies should therefore be evaluated as risk-management problems, not merely as one-off responses to a weather event (Blanco et al., 2019; Rojas et al., 2021).

Operational measures

Alongside structural measures, adaptation requires operational measures adjusted each season.

These include hourly monitoring of chill and heat, phenological tracking, irrigation management, crop-load adjustment, pruning to modulate canopy microclimate, and preparedness for frost, rain, or hail.

Irrigation, crop load, and canopy management can help modulate tree water status, fruit microclimate, and exposure to final ripening risks, whereas regulated deficit irrigation and water management must always be formulated according to cultivar, rootstock, soil, phenological phase, and water availability.

Operational adaptation is therefore not the application of fixed recipes, but the reduction of physiological oscillations that increase fruit and tree vulnerability (Blanco et al., 2019; Nieto-Serrano et al., 2026).

Decision support

Within this framework, instrumental monitoring and decision-support systems can help translate physiological understanding into more precise operational decisions.

Integration of hourly data on chill, heat, rainfall, humidity, wet-bulb temperature, fruit-surface wetness, phenological monitoring, tree water-status indicators, and probabilistic risk assessment can guide irrigation, frost protection, anticipation of surface wetness associated with cracking, and investment in covers or nets under local conditions.

These tools do not replace agronomic judgment or eliminate uncertainty, but they improve decision traceability when interpreted together with cultivar, rootstock, microclimate, fruit maturity, available infrastructure, and commercial target (Fadón et al., 2021; Fadón et al., 2023; Rojas et al., 2021; Ranjan et al., 2022; Nieto-Serrano et al., 2026).

Overall, adaptation of sweet cherry to climate change requires integration of thermal models, tree physiology, economic risk, and localized management.

Adaptation strategy

The most robust strategies will combine agroclimatic cultivar zoning, selection of adapted cultivars and rootstocks, physical protection when justified, efficient water management, phenological monitoring, and economic decision analysis.

This interpretation closes the chapter with a central idea: optimal sweet cherry production will depend not only on increasing yield or quality under average conditions, but on designing systems capable of maintaining production stability under more irregular winters, more uncertain springs, and more frequent extreme events (Rojas et al., 2021; Fadón et al., 2023; Santolaria et al., 2026).

Table 6 summarizes the main preharvest factors, their critical timing, expected production effect, and associated technical orientation.

Its interpretation must remain contextual and traceable to the available evidence.

Preharvest matrix

Table 6. Synthetic matrix of preharvest factors and contextualized management orientation

Note: This matrix is intended as a contextual decision framework and should not be used as a fixed prescription.

Operationally, the matrix is best used as a seasonal monitoring loop: first define the structural risk of the site and cultivar, then update chill and forcing accumulation during dormancy, intensify frost and pollination decisions during bloom, adjust water and crop load during fruit development, and reassess rain, wetness, cracking, and harvest risk during ripening.

This sequence turns the physiological chain described in the chapter into a traceable management process.

Conclusions

Optimal sweet cherry production should be understood as a continuous physiological and agronomic chain in which the commercial yield of a season depends on processes initiated during the previous cycle.

Floral induction, bud quality, winter chill accumulation, spring heat, frost sensitivity, bloom, pollination, and fruit set operate as interdependent stages.

Commercial yield

Productive success therefore cannot be attributed to a single management practice or to a single thermal indicator, but to coherence among cultivar, rootstock, site, phenology, microclimate, and agronomic decisions adjusted to each system.

During fruit development, management of water, crop load, canopy, and mineral nutrition conditions the final expression of fruit size, firmness, color, soluble solids, and commercial quality.

Ripening, however, concentrates both the highest value and the highest vulnerability of the crop.

At this stage, reduced xylem contribution, phloem-dominated inflow, solute accumulation, cuticular tension, and microcracking increase fruit sensitivity to rain, surface wetness, cracking, hail, and rots.

Final risks

Quality built over months can be lost rapidly if final ripening risks are not anticipated through water management, physical protection, canopy ventilation, contextualized nutrition, and adjusted harvest decisions.

Under climate change, the production stability of sweet cherry will increasingly depend on the capacity to adapt orchard systems to more irregular winters, more uncertain springs, greater combined heat and water stress, and more frequent extreme events.

This adaptation should be organized at two complementary levels: structural measures, such as selection of region, elevation, cultivar, rootstock, planting design, and protection infrastructure; and operational measures, such as phenological monitoring, irrigation adjustment, crop-load regulation, canopy management, and response to frost, rain, or hail.

None of these measures should be interpreted as a universal recipe, but as part of a local strategy based on diagnosis, evidence, and risk analysis.

Systems approach

Overall, preharvest management of sweet cherry should move from isolated interventions toward a systems approach.

Stable commercial production is achieved not only by maximizing yield or quality under average conditions, but by reducing tree and fruit vulnerability during the most sensitive phenological windows.

Integrating physiology, agroclimatic data, cultivar-specific thresholds, local monitoring, and decision analysis will be essential for converting the biological potential of sweet cherry into high-quality fruit, resilient production, and sustainable commercial yield.

Jesús Alonso¹,²

¹ Institute of Food Science, Technology and Nutrition (ICTAN-CSIC), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), c/ José Antonio Novais, 6, 28040 Madrid, Spain.

² University Research Institute for Agricultural Resources (INURA), Universidad de Extremadura, Edificio de los Institutos Universitarios de Investigación, Avenida de la Investigación s/n, 06006 Badajoz, Spain.

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