Cold hardiness dynamics predict budbreak and associated low-temperature threats in grapevine

Dormant buds of temperate woody perennial plants must attain cold hardiness to survive winters and timely lose it in spring to break bud while avoiding damage from low temperatures and late frosts. Therefore, we asked: Can a cold hardiness model be used to predict budbreak? Here, we used a previously published cold hardiness model to predict bud cold hardiness of three grapevine (Vitis spp.) varieties ('Cabernet-Sauvignon', 'Riesling', and 'Concord') from historical temperature records of eight locations in North America and Europe. Based on those predictions and thresholds of cold hardiness at budbreak from literature, budbreak date was extracted. Despite being untrained on budbreak data, the model resulted in good predictions (RMSE = 7.3d, n = 329), further improved based on expected delays from estimated cold damage (RMSE = 7.2d). Both increasing and decreasing freeze damage risk trends were predicted with increasing temperature, depending on the range of mean dormant season temperature (MDST; 1 Nov-30 Apr) in each location. Spring phenology predictions in relation to MDST also showed warming to advance (MDST < 10°C) or delay (MDST > 10°C) budbreak. Cold hardiness dynamics represent a key advancement in spring phenological modeling that provides information on low-temperature damage potential for the entire dormant season alongside improved predictions of budbreak timing.