Tomato quality is more dependent on temperature than on photosynthetically active radiation

Citations Over TimeTop 11% of 2007 papers

Abstract

Abstract BACKGROUND: A greenhouse experiment was performed to study the effect of cumulative air temperature and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) on tomato quality. Tomato plants were subjected to two different shading treatments causing a 30 and 50% reduction in incoming PAR respectively (plants were exposed to 70 and 50% of incoming PAR respectively). Control plants (exposed to 100% of incoming PAR) were also included in the experiment. The experiment was carried out under unheated greenhouse conditions. To minimise the dependence of temperature on PAR, only a small area inside a large greenhouse was shaded, thereby allowing air currents to homogenise temperature all over the enclosure. Parameters of tomato quality were correlated with cumulative temperature ( T cum ) and cumulative PAR ( PAR cum ) for a period of 45 days before harvest. RESULTS: T cum was strongly correlated with firmness, electrical conductivity, soluble solids content and total phenolic compounds and weakly correlated with pH, dry weight, titratable acidity and vitamin C content. PAR cum was only weakly correlated with firmness, dry weight, soluble solids content and total phenolic compounds. CONCLUSION: T cum has a stronger influence on tomato quality than PAR cum . Growers could obtain tomatoes of similar quality under lower PAR than that provided by natural sunlight. Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry

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