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High planting densities achieve high light interception and harvestable yield per area but at the expense of product quality. This study aimed to maintain high light interception without negative impacts on fruit quality. Dwarf tomato was grown at four densities in a climate-controlled room—at two constant densities (high and low) and two dynamic spacing treatments (maintaining 90% and 75% ground coverage by decreasing planting density in 3–4 steps)—resulting in ~100, 19, 54, and 41 plants/m2 averaged over 100 days of cultivation, respectively. Constant high density resulted in the highest light use efficiency (LUE; 7.7 g fruit fresh weight per mol photons incident on the canopy) and the highest harvestable fruit yield (11.1 kg/m2) but the lowest fruit size and quality. Constant low density resulted in the lowest LUE and yield (2.3 g/mol and 3.2 kg/m2, respectively), but higher fruit size and quality than high density. Compared to low density, maintaining 90% ground coverage increased yield (9.1 kg/m2) and LUE (6.4 g/mol). Maintaining 75% ground coverage resulted in a 7.2 kg/m2 yield and 5.1 g/mol LUE. Both dynamic spacing treatments attained the same or slightly reduced fruit quality compared to low density. Total plant weight per m2 increased with planting density and saturated at a constant high density. Assimilate shortage at the plant level and flower abortion lowered harvestable fruit yield per plant, sweetness, and acidity under constant high density. Harvestable fruit yield per plant was the highest under dynamic spacing and low density. Under constant high density, morphological responses to lower light availability per plant—i.e., higher specific leaf area, internode elongation, and increased slenderness—coincided with the improved whole-plant LUE (g plant dry weight per mol photons). We conclude that a constant high planting density results in the highest harvestable fruit yield per area, but with reduced fruit quality. Dynamic spacing during cultivation

Exploring sustainable strategies for improving crop water and nitrogen use efficiency is essential. Silicon (Si) has been reported as a beneficial metalloid for plants since it alleviates several abiotic stresses (including drought) by triggering the plants' antioxidant system. However, its role in mitigating the negative impact of nitrogen (N) deficit alone or when combined with water (W) deficit is not well studied. This study applied 0 or 2 mM of Na₂SiO3 to 3-week-old tomato cv. Micro-Tom seedlings that were grown under the following conditions: control (CTR; 100%N + 100% Field Capacity), N deficit (N; 50% N + 100% Field Capacity), water deficit (W; 100% N + 50% Field Capacity) or combined stress (N + W; 50% N + 50% Field Capacity). The Si effect on tomato plant growth depended on the type of stress. Si could only alleviate stress caused by N + W deficit resulting in a higher root dry weight (by 28%), total dry weight (by 23%) and root length (by 37%). Alongside this, there was an increase in the antioxidant (AOX) system activity with the root activity of ascorbate peroxidase and catalase enzymes being enhanced by 48% and by 263%, respectively. Si application also enhanced AOX enzyme activity when tomato plants were subjected to individual deficits but to a lesser extent. In conclusion, Si-treated tomato plants could efficiently modulate their AOX networks in a situation of combined N and water limitation, thus mitigating some of the adverse effects of this combined stress.

Far-red radiation affects many plant processes, including reproductive organ abortion. Our research aimed to determine the role of apical dominance in far-red light-induced flower and fruit abortion in sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.). We conducted several climate room experiments where plants were grown under white- or red-rich LED light, with or without additional far-red light. Additional far-red light enhanced apical dominance: it increased auxin levels in the apices of dominant shoots, and caused a greater difference in internode length and apical auxin levels between dominant and subordinate shoots. Additional far-red light stimulated fruit abortion in intact plants but not in decapitated plants, suggesting a crucial role of shoot apices in this effect. However, reducing basipetal auxin transport in the stems with N-1-naphthylphthalamic acid did not influence far-red light-stimulated fruit abortion, although auxin levels in the stem were largely reduced. Applying the synthetic auxin 1-naphthaleneacetic acid on decapitated apices did not influence fruit abortion. However, applying the auxin biosynthesis inhibitor yucasin to shoot apices reduced fruit abortion regardless of the light conditions, accompanied by slight shoot growth retardation. These findings suggest that the basipetal auxin stream does not mediate far-red light-stimulated fruit abortion. Far-red light-stimulated fruit abortion was associated with reduced sucrose accumulation and lower invertase activities in flowers. We suggest that under additional far-red light conditions, increased auxin levels in shoot apices promote fruit abortion probably through enhanced competition for assimilates between apices and flowers, which limits assimilate import into flowers.

This study compared supplemental white light-emitting diode (LED) light provided on top of the canopy (top-light) or partially on top and partially as intracanopy light (ICL) in high-wire cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) crops. The aim was to determine the effects of partially substituting top-light by ICL on fruit yield and its underlying yield components. For each crop, three replicate Venlo glasshouse compartments were used. Two cucumber (HiPower and Skyson) and two tomato cultivars (Brioso and Merlice) were planted in the second half of Oct 2020 and grown on stone wool for a period of 15 weeks (cucumber) or 20 weeks (tomato). Light was supplied at either a light intensity of 250 or 375 µmol⋅m−2⋅s−1, provided either as 100% top-light or as 67% (2/3) top-light and 33% (1/3) ICL. For cucumber at the higher light intensity, 50% more fruits were retained and for tomato at the higher light intensity, planting density was 50% higher to keep the plants balanced in terms of source-to-sink ratio. Substituting 33% of top-light with ICL resulted on average in an increase of 17% in fresh fruit yield for both cucumber and tomato. This increase was twice as high at the higher light intensity (20% to 24%) compared with the lower light intensity (10% to 12%). For both cucumber and tomato, the higher yield for ICL treatments resulted mainly from higher total plant dry weight, whereas partitioning to the fruits was hardly affected. For both crops, the higher plant dry weight resulted from a higher light use efficiency. Increasing light intensity from 250 to 375 µmol⋅m−2⋅s−1 resulted in 38% higher total daily light integral (including solar radiation) and 36% to 37% higher total plant dry weight in cucumber. In tomato, the higher light intensity resulted in 33% higher daily light integral and 36% to 40% total plant dry weight. These values are in agreement with the rule of thumb that 1% increment in light results in 1% increase in plant growth. For cucum

Carbon (C) storage allows a plant to support growth whenever there is a temporal asynchrony between supply (source strength) and demand of carbon (sink strength). This asynchrony is strongly influenced by changes in light and temperature. In most crop models, C storage is included as a passive process that occurs whenever there is an excess of C from photosynthesis compared with the demand of C for metabolism. However, there are numerous studies that challenged this concept, and provided experimental evidence that C storage is an active process that allows buffering of environmental fluctuations and supports long-term plant growth. We propose that an active C pool needs to be included in simulation models for a better understanding of plant growth patterns under fluctuating environment. Specifically, we propose that the two main mechanisms actively regulating C storage in plants are the partitioning of assimilates between soluble sugars and starch and the degradation and remobilization of storage compounds. The insights gained here are important to optimize crop performance under fluctuating conditions and thus for developing more resource-efficient crop production systems.

The rapid increases of the global population and climate change pose major challenges to a sustainable production of food to meet consumer demands. Process-based models (PBMs) have long been used in agricultural crop production for predicting yield and understanding the environmental regulation of plant physiological processes and its consequences for crop growth and development. In recent years, with the increasing use of sensor and communication technologies for data acquisition in agriculture, machine learning (ML) has become a popular tool in yield prediction (especially on a large scale) and phenotyping. Both PBMs and ML are frequently used in studies on major challenges in crop production and each has its own advantages and drawbacks. We propose to combine PBMs and ML given their intrinsic complementarity, to develop knowledge- and data-driven modelling (KDDM) with high prediction accuracy as well as good interpretability. Parallel, serial and modular structures are three main modes can be adopted to develop KDDM for agricultural applications. The KDDM approach helps to simplify model parameterization by making use of sensor data and improves the accuracy of yield prediction. Furthermore, the KDDM approach has great potential to expand the boundary of current crop models to allow upscaling towards a farm, regional or global level and downscaling to the gene-to-cell level. The KDDM approach is a promising way of combining simulation models in agriculture with the fast developments in data science while mechanisms of many genetic and physiological processes are still under investigation, especially at the nexus of increasing food production, mitigating climate change and achieving sustainability.

This study aimed to understand the morphophysiological responses and primary metabolism of tomato seedlings subjected to mild levels of nitrogen and/or water deficit (50% N and/or 50% W). After 16 days of exposure, plants grown under the combined deficit showed similar behavior to the one found upon exposure to single N deficit. Both N deficit treatments resulted in a significantly lower dry weight, leaf area, chlorophyll content, and N accumulation but in a higher N use efficiency when compared to control (CTR) plants. Moreover, concerning plant metabolism, at the shoot level, these two treatments also responded in a similar way, inducing higher C/N ratio, nitrate reductase (NR) and glutamine synthetase (GS) activity, expression of RuBisCO encoding genes as well as a downregulation of GS2.1 and GS2.2 transcripts. Interestingly, plant metabolic responses at the root level did not follow the same pattern, with plants under combined deficit behaving similarly to W deficit plants, resulting in enhanced nitrate and proline concentrations, NR activity, and an upregulation of GS1 and NR genes than in CTR plants. Overall, our data suggest that the N remobilization and osmoregulation strategies play a relevant role in plant acclimation to these abiotic stresses and highlight the complexity of plant responses under a combined N+W deficit.

Plant-to-plant variation (interplant variation) may play an important role in determining individual plant and whole canopy performance, where interplant variation in architecture and photosynthesis traits has direct effects on light absorption and photosynthesis. We aimed to quantify the importance of observed interplant variation on both whole-plant and canopy light absorption and photosynthesis. Plant architecture was measured in two experiments with fruiting tomato crops (Solanum lycopersicum) grown in glasshouses in the Netherlands, in week 16 (Exp. 1) or week 19 (Exp. 2) after transplanting. Experiment 1 included four cultivars grown under three supplementary lighting treatments, and Experiment 2 included two different row orientations. Measured interplant variations of the architectural traits, namely, internode length, leaf area, petiole angle, and leaflet angle, as well as literature data on the interplant variation of the photosynthesis traits alpha, Jmax28, and Vcmax28, were incorporated in a static functional–structural plant model (FSPM). The FSPM was used to analyze light absorption and net photosynthesis of whole plants in response to interplant variation in architectural and photosynthesis traits. Depending on the trait, introducing interplant variation in architecture and photosynthesis traits in a functional–structural plant model did not affect or negatively affected canopy light absorption and net photosynthesis compared with the reference model without interplant variation. Introducing interplant variation of architectural and photosynthesis traits in FSPM results in a more realistic simulation of variation of plants within a canopy. Furthermore, it can improve the accuracy of simulation of canopy light interception and photosynthesis although these effects at the canopy level are relatively small (<4% for light absorption and<7% for net photosynthesis).

This study aims to perform a broad analysis of the antioxidant (AOX) responses of young tomato plants exposed to single and combined mild nitrogen (N) and water deficits through the evaluation of oxidative biomarkers, non-enzymatic and enzymatic AOX components. ‘Micro-Tom’ seedlings were subjected to four treatments: control (CTR; 100%N + 100%W), N deficit (N; 50%N), water deficit (W; 50%W), and combined deficits (N + W; 50%N + 50%W). An enhancement of several non-enzymatic and enzymatic components was found in plants subjected to N + W deficit, which presented higher anthocyanins accumulation (up to 103%) as well as higher levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) transcripts at root level and of ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and catalase (CAT) transcripts at shoot level. This increase in the gene expression was also translated in augmented SOD (up to 202%), APX (up to 155%) and CAT (up to 108%) activity compared to CTR plants and the single deficits. Overall, tomato plants were able to employ defense strategies to cope with this combined deficit, as demonstrated by the higher total AOX capacity (up to 87%) compared to the single deficits, which contributed to the maintenance of their redox homeostasis, with unchanged values of lipid peroxidation and hydrogen peroxide compared with CTR plants.

Supplemental lighting is necessary for winter greenhouse tomato production, and optimised spectra must consider both yield and energy use. In a 20-week winter greenhouse experiment, two common commercial tomato cultivars–‘Merlice’ and ‘Brioso’–were grown under four LED spectra with 38%, 63%, 81%, and 95% red photons. As the percentage of red photons increased, the blue and green percentages decreased (not at the same ratio). Stem length, specific leaf area, and dry mass partitioning were not significantly affected by spectra in either cultivar, but increasing the red percentage from 38% to 95% decreased harvested fruit fresh mass by 13%, total plant dry mass by 7.1%, and fruit dry mass by 9.5% in ‘Merlice’. There were no significant differences in these parameters for ‘Brioso’. The yield kWh−1 increased with increasing percent red in both cultivars because LED fixtures with higher fractions of photons from 660 nm red LEDs have higher photon efficacies (µmol J−1). The efficacies of the lamps in this study were estimated to range from 2.6 to 3.6 µmol J−1. Growers must consider tradeoffs that can occur between yield and efficacy in some cultivars, and how these factors apply to their situation, when choosing the spectrum for their greenhouse.