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Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M Solar radiation entering a high-wire tomato greenhouse is mostly intercepted by the top of the crop canopy, while the role of lower leaves diminishes with age, turning them into sink organs rather than sources. Accordingly, the defoliation of basal leaves is a widely applied agronomic practice in high-wire greenhouse cultivation management. However, the recent increase in the application of supplemental light emitting diode (LED) lighting for high-density tomato production may affect the role of basal leaves, promoting their source role for fruit development and growth. The present research aims to explore the application of supplementary LED lighting on Solanum lycopersicum cv. Siranzo in the Mediterranean area during the cold season in combination with two regimes of basal defoliation. The defoliation factors consisted of the early removal of the leaves (R) right under the developing truss before the fruit turning stage and a non-removal (NR) during the entire cultivation cycle. The lighting factors consisted of an artificial LED lighting treatment with red and blue diodes for 16 h d−1 (h 8-00) with an intensity of 180 µmol s−1 m−2 (RB) and a control cultivated under natural light only (CK). The results demonstrated a great effect of the supplemental LED light, which increased the total yield (+118%), favoring fruit setting (+46%) and faster ripening (+60%) regardless of defoliation regimes, although the increased energy prices hinder the economic viability of the technology. Concerning fruit quality, defoliation significantly reduced the soluble solid content, while it increased the acidity when combined with natural light.

BACKGROUND: Texture is important in the preferences of apple consumers. Of the pre-harvest factors affecting fruit quality and especially texture, altitude and subsequent climatic conditions are crucial, determining differences in the physiological mechanisms of fruit growth, ripening stage and chemical composition, as demonstrated by several studies. This work applies a detailed sensory-instrumental protocol developed in a previous paper to investigate the impact of altitude, time of harvest and their cross-effect on sensory characteristics of apple, with a focus on texture. RESULTS: Sensory differences were found in relation to altitude, although the profile results were mainly affected by the time of harvest. Fruit from lower altitude was described as juicier, crunchier and sweeter than samples from higher altitude, which were floury, sourer and more astringent. Texture performance, soluble solids content and titratable acidity corroborated this sensory description. Moreover, anatomical data showed that fruit from lower altitude had a larger volume, a higher number of cells and a higher percentage of intercellular spaces. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated that differences between fruit from various altitudes can be perceived through human senses, and that the proposed sensory–instrumental tool can be used to describe such differences. This study brings more understanding about the impact of altitude and time of harvest on apple sensory properties. This work could support apple producers, from semi-mountainous regions (Alps, Tyrol, etc.), in advertising and valorising their products with their specific characteristics in a more efficient manner. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

To cope with increasing water scarcity, breeding programs targeting for more efficient crop water use are crucial. This requires comprehensive knowledge of plant responses to drought, including the regulation of water status (by stomatal closure) and water - use efficiency (the ratio of carbon gain to water use). These questions have been scarcely studied in fruit trees, yet are of major economic importance. A main limitation results from the lack of high throughput techniques to characterize the physiological responses of hundreds of trees in the field as required to perform genetic analyses. We screened the diversity of European apple tree responses to drought, by unique combination of hight hroughput and in planta measurements applied on two core - collections in Montpellier (France) and Bologna (Italy), respectively. A progressive soil water deficit was ensured and continuously monitored in both orchards, through summer irrigation withholding. In the whole collections (>250 varieties), a semi-empirical index (IPL index), computed from chlorophyll fluorescence measurements, was used as an indicator of leaf photosynthesis, whereas the variability of stomatal regulation and canopy structure was characterized by airborne imagery. The validity of high-throughput indices was assessed through fine measurements of water potential, stomatal conductance and photosynthesis on 6 varieties common to both collections. A large variability of IPL index was observed, with highly significant effects of the genotype and watering scenario (well-watered vs water stress). A genome wide association study (GWAS) was undertaken to identify the genomic regions controlling the variations detected. In parallel, the effect of interaction between Genotype and Environment (GxE) was dissected to highlight contrasted strategies of water use under drought across the varieties studied.

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