Abstract: The differentiation process of winter buds at different nodes of grapevine branch during
late dormancy stage was investigated in this study, for which some branches of 6-year-old grapevine（Vitis
vinifera L.‘Fujiminori’）were cut back and only the two upmost buds were kept and used as material for
expression analysis of nine floral genes. The result showed that the levels of 8 genes，such as VvAP1，
VvAP2，VvAP3，VvAG，VvFUL，VvSOC1，VvLFY and VvFLC were low in winter. However，the buds
could keep flower-bud-differentiation state; the branch-cut-back treatment could not only promote the
floral development，but also increase the gene expression levels in the buds at different nodes；The quality
of the central buds on a branch and the relative gene expression levels in them were all higher than those
buds at upper and lower nodes of the same branches. Other，the central buds seemed to have a longer
development period.

Key words: grapevine, floral, nodes, gene expression