Аннотация:When dormant, perennial plants dwelling in the regions with pronounced seasonality of climate can withstand prolonged periods of harsh environmental conditions. The period of plant dormancy is commonly divided into pre-dormancy, endodormancy, and ecodormancy. During pre-dormancy, genetic, physiological, biochemical, and morphological rearrangements increasing stress resilience of the plant organism are completed. In the course of endodormancy, meristem cells cannot resume division even under favorable conditions. Environmental stimuli trigger dormancy release and the onset of ecodormancy when plant cell division and growth are restrained only by unfavorable environmental conditions. Frequent nowadays, weather fluctuations can lead to abnormal progression of dormancy. It results in the increased risk of damage to plants, especially crop plants, by adverse climatic conditions. This situation calls for the development of methods for noninvasive express monitoring of plant dormancy. Studies of the relationships between the dormancy status of plants and the functioning of their photosynthetic apparatus made possible the development of methods for monitoring of woody plant condition by recording the variable fluorescence of chlorophyll contained either in needles or in the endoderm of the shoots. This review briefly summarizes current knowledge about the mechanism of the dormancy induction and release. The functioning and regulation of the photosynthetic apparatus during winter dormancy as well as characteristic patterns of chlorophyll fluorescence induction in this period are considered. The difficulties of interpretation of chlorophyll fluorescence signals in the context of monitoring of plant dormancy are discussed together with its potential applications.