Critical Stages of Inflorescence (Flower) Formation

Doing our rubberbanding task has allowed us to get Up Close and Personal With Our Buds, but without x-ray vision, it's difficult to know how fruitful our buds are. The fruitfulness of a bud is a two year process and conditions in year one and year two affect how fruitful our vines will be. It is always a good thing to take another look at inflorescence formation even though I have blogged extensively about the flowering process:
The Mysterious Life of Grape Buds
Conditions Influencing Inflorescence Differentiation
Grapevine Flower Buds
Grapevine Inflorescence
Flowering in the Vineyard
Grapevine Inflorescence Formation---Parts 1 and 2
Inflorescence Formation Part 3
In reading Vasconcelos et al., The Flowering Process of Vitis vinifera: A Review I came upon a good schematic that might help to envision all the processes going on during budbreak.

I always find that a diagram is helpful in understanding what this cycle looks like. So, here is one of my go to diagrams of shoot growth from Jackson.²

In Summary:
Critical stages of flower formation

• Season 1: induction, initiation, and early differentiation
• Season 2: differentiation at budburst

For more information regarding how inflorescence fruitfulness is influenced by climatic conditions, please go to Conditions Influencing Inflorescence Differentiation
. References:
1. M. Carmo Vasconcelos, Marc Greven, Chris S. Winefield, Mike C.T. Trought, Victoria Raw, The Flowering Process of Vitis vinifera: A Review, Am J Enol Vitic., December 2009 60: 411-434.
2. Ronald Jackson, Wine Science Third Edition, Elsevier, 2008, pg. 68.