Could you elaborate your statement ?
Well, they are ... s l o w ... to respond. They (pines) can be dead, but will take 6 months to announce it, so to speak. To some degree, this must be because of the narrow xylem lumens. But I was jokingly saying pomegranates are slow (stupid) just like a pine.
I've noted that horse chestnuts won't crack buds after the summer solstice - they will make buds, but buds won't release until after some vernalization. Many (most?) conifers will just set buds, but won't release them when day lengths are shortening (i.e., after the summer solstice). I was thinking about the possibility that pomegranate's being similar - maybe pruning in spring (prior to the summer solstice) could be different than in summer/fall. With horsechestnuts and temperate conifers some number of hours below 5C resets things and buds will break anytime it is warmer than 5C. But pomegranates grow in climates where temperatures never get below 5C. So, how would the bud dormancy be released, I asked myself - maybe some 'tropical' species can respond to the winter solstice? Not an unreasonable expectation, but ...
Then I got to thinking about flower bud set - how that happens mostly after the summer solstice. Lots of sun and ??? causes gibberellin production to drop and a messenger rna from the leaves around the vegetative bud arrest it and start the process of morphing it into a floral bud. Hmmm ...., (I said to myself) this is getting far deeper than bonhe usually goes; he always has a simple moral to his fables.
Maybe something more basic with cytokinin and auxin. In one sense, auxin is the signal of 'life above'. When the signal disappears, the message is to 'seal it off' = die back. In pines, the tip bud is the apical meristem, but another one will be made as long as there are enough leaves (needles) which also produce auxin. Aside from JBP/KBP, few pines will survive with only tip buds, so needles must be the major producers of auxin. Maybe it is similar with poms?
So, I dunno what is going on. Never had a pom. Probably won't. The only learning point that I am getting is that poms are s l o w, ... just like pines. What is going on inside a pine still has be a bit mystified as opposed to, say, a maple which seems fairly straightforward.
So, tell us, Thụ Thoại, what is the learning point?
btw, I always enjoy these little tidbits.