ISHS Acta Horticulturae 260: International Symposium on Growth and Yield Control in Vegetable Production
RECENT STRATEGIES OF OPTIMAL GROWTH REGULATION BY THE SPEAKING PLANT CONCEPT |
| Author: | Y. Hashimoto |
| Abstract:
Increasing the quality and quantity of farm products means cultivating the variety with good inheritance and supplying an optimal environment condition. Whoever in the world would not be unanimous about this conclusion. The optimal environmental condition varies with plant variety and also varies with growing stage. Optimal environmental condition does not always mean the environment promoting plant growth, sometimes, the environmental stress that retards the growth but improves the quality is also concluded in the optimal condition. Furthermore, as a result of the evolution for long years, plant growth is related to seasonal change affected by the altitude in the earth. Plant have the adaptability to daily environmental change existing in anywhere. All those show that the optimal tenvironmental condition can not be a constant. Due to the greenhouse, in the cold place or cold season, warm environment which is necessary for the plant growth is guaranteed, and several kinds of vegetables can be produced in anywhere in the world if the production cost is taken into condition. This is a great honor of these people who make effort and devote to this branch. Certainly, they should be praised. To develop the greenhouse industry into a more effective industry, at first, it can be pointed out that cold resistant variety and more effective heating system should be developed. The development of nutrient uptake system is also necessary. To satisfy the needs, many computer have already been introduced into production. The heating system, soil-less cultivating system such as NFT and Rockwool are controlled by the computer properly at some extend. The next target is to control the cultivation by adding various stresses with easy to the plant by means regulating environment necessary for the improvement of quality. On the other hand, plant factories are developed by the enterprises in Japan and the United States. They are expected as the new plant cultivating system for the next century. The solar vegetable factory is quite similar in environmental control system to the greenhouse in European countries such as in Holland. But, in the plant factory with artificial lighting system, the best environmental condition is made by the computer. Because searching this best condition takes a period, the environment factor has to be controlled in a constant. This kind of condition may be optimal for the vegetables such as lettuce, the growing period is very short. But when the stress is needed for harvesting the products with quality and high added-values, the optimal condition will become different. No matter in greenhouse or in plant factory, the environmental control may be reached to the new stage of dynamic control by the aid of computer from the constant environmental control. | |
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