Effect of Environmental Conditions and Salinity on
Tomato Plant Growth Status
Paula Costa, PhD
Student, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
Greenhouse tomato plants tend to cycle
between an overly vegetative and an overly reproductive growth status. In
long crop cycles it is important to maintain plants under balance so that
production is maintained as uniform as possible. Therefore, knowledge
regarding plant growth status in response to environmental conditions is
an important tool to predict near-future yield as well as potential
near-future losses.
The hypothesis being investigated is that, by
manipulating the environmental factors, which affect transpiration, both
at the canopy level (potential transpiration, ET0), and at the root level
(electrical conductivity, EC), it is possible to change photoassimilate
distribution between source [leaves] and sink [fruits] during the fruiting
cycle of the crop and steer the plant towards more vegetative or more
reproductive growth if desired, as well as achieve and maintain a balance
between these two developmental trends. The main goal of this study is to
quantify the individual and combined effect of canopy and root
environments on certain plant morphological characteristics, which are
being used as indicators of plant growth status, and establish a
correlation between these morphological characteristics and
productivity.
This study will provide useful information regarding
greenhouse climate control strategies for greenhouse tomato production in
arid regions. Furthermore, once a relationship between plant growth status
and yield is established this study will be able to provide the grower
with a powerful decision support system, since it would allow for
environmental adjustments before yield losses occur. These environmental
adjustments can be made directly through the automated environmental
control system.
Cooperators: Dr Gene Giacomelli, Dr. Chieri Kubota,
Dr. Merle Jensen, and Technical support: Mr. Stephen
Kania |
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