DRY MATTER PARTITIONING OF GREENHOUSE CUCUMBER CROPS AS AFFECTED BY FRUIT LOAD

Glasshouse experiments were carried out in Southern Spain (Cartagena) to determine the dynamics of dry matter partition of two cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. cv Trópico F1) growth cycles (winter crop and spring crop). Dry matter of leaves, roots, stems, petioles and fruits was determined at several stages of the growth cycle.
A classical growth analysis was applied to the data in order to obtain growth parameters (growth rate and relative growth rate) characterizing the growth of each organ.
The results indicated that, when using thermal time (base temperature= 10 ºC), the dynamics of dry biomass of the two growth cycles were quite similar, and were fairly described by an expolinear function for most organs, except for dry matter accumulation in leaves.
The latter showed a marked decrease when fruits began to constitute the main sink for assimilates.
It was also observed that, after harvest peaks, the decrease in fruit load corresponded to significant changes in whole plant growth rate.
The results suggest that, during the period of fruit production, the sink demand of the fruits is the main process driving dry matter accumulation and partition in cucumber plants

VI International Symposium on Protected Cultivation in Mild Winter Climate: Product and Process Innovation

M.D. Gómez, A. Baille, M.M. González-Real, J.M. Mercader

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L, cv Tropico), growth, dry matter, partitioning, greenhouse, modelling

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2003.614.85