A SIMULATION MODEL FOR CUCUMBER GROWTH TO FORM BASIS FOR MANAGING THE PLANT-ENVIRONMENT SYSTEM

With the objectives to integrate the knowledge of physiological, morphological and physical processes regarding crop growth and to extrapolate it towards situations where the crop is growing for practical purposes, a model for the simulation of cucumber growth was developed.
The basic processes concerned were photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, partitioning of dry-matter, leaf morphogenesis and crop micro climate.
These individual processes were formulated and/or parametrized on the bases of experimental evidences and informations from relevant litterature, and incorporated into a functional dynamic model.

Growth simulations were made for the plants grown under different radiation conditions in a phytotron, and the results were compared with the actual growth data.
Maintenance respiration rate being 50 % larger than that reported by Challa (1976) was needed to explain the actual growth by the simulation.
With this maintenance respiration rate, the model well predicted the growth behavior of the cucumber plants in response to the radiation conditions.

Symposium on Potential Productivity in Protected Cultivation

T. Horie

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1978.87.22