It’s used to promote the bud burst, and hence fruiting, so more fruits appear at the same time which makes harvesting better controlled. Hi-Cane is also used on apples for exactly the same reason. I’m not an expert, but I’d suspect the warmer weather up here would typically promote more random fruiting.
The sprays are to replicate frosts which we don’t get that would do something similar. The warmer weather probably means earlier harvests as well up here.
Wow, my error not seeing the article date, sorry about that. It popped up on my feed this am. Better look more carefully in the future.