Published in

International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS), Acta Horticulturae, 956, p. 51-57, 2012

DOI: 10.17660/actahortic.2012.956.3

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Continuous Light as a Way to Increase Greenhouse Tomato Production: Expected Challenges

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Orange circle
Preprint: archiving restricted
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Tomato plants need six hours of darkness per day for optimal growth; therefore, photosynthesis does not take place for 25% of the day. If tomatoes could be grown under continuous light, a substantial increase in production is expected. In practice, however, continuous light-grown tomato plants develop a potentially lethal mottled chlorosis. Such continuous-light-induced injury is only poorly understood so far. Recently, we proposed a number of hypotheses that aim to explain the continuous-light-induced injury, and rediscovered that wild-tomato species were reported as continuous-light-tolerant. Here, we (i) present a simulation study which shows that if an ideal continuous-light-tolerant tomato genotype is used and no crop adaptations to continuous light are assumed, greenhouse tomato production could be 26% higher when using supplementary lighting for 24 h day-1 in comparison with using supplementary lighting only for 18 h day-1 during day time, and (ii) discuss expected changes in greenhouse energy budgets and alterations in crop physiological responses that might arise from cultivating tomatoes under continuous light.