Factors Affecting Tolerance to Low Night Temperature Differ by Fruit Types in Tomato

Eun-Young Yang,Myeong-Cheoul Cho,Sherzod Nigmatullayevich Rajametov,Hyo-Bong Jeong,Won-Byoung Chae

doi:10.3390/agriculture11070681

Eun-Young Yang, Myeong-Cheoul Cho + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11070681

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Journal: Agriculture	Publication Date: Jul 19, 2021
Citations: 5	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Rural Development Administration, Dankook University

Abstract

Tolerance to low night temperature (LNT) can be a practical and economical target in tomato breeding programs for energy saving in greenhouses. This study was conducted to investigate the physiological and biochemical responses to LNT using four tomato accessions with cherry or large fruit types having LNT tolerance or sensitivity. The accessions were grown in two polyethylene film greenhouses with night temperature set-points of 10 and 15 °C for heating. LNT significantly reduced the plant height, and photosynthetic parameters were also lower in 10 than 15 °C among all accessions. Photosynthetic rate in 10 °C during the early growth period was reduced more in LNT-tolerant than -sensitive accessions. The numbers of flowers in 10 °C were significantly reduced in cherry but not in large fruit types. Fruit set in 10 °C significantly decreased in LNT-sensitive accessions of both fruit types, which was due to abnormal flower morphology. Proline accumulation patterns between 10 and 15 °C significantly differed between cherry and large fruit types as well as between LNT-tolerant and -sensitive accessions. Chlorophyll content at later growth stages in 10 °C was significantly higher in LNT-tolerant than -sensitive accessions in both fruit types. These results suggest that different tomato fruit types may have different mechanisms for LNT tolerance, possibly due to different proline accumulation patterns between cherry and large fruit types.

Highlights

Abiotic stress significantly affects the vegetative and reproductive growth of plants and, eventually, their survival
The present study provides evidence that tomato genotypes with different fruit type and low night temperature (LNT) tolerance show clearly different patterns in photosynthesis, the number of fruits, fruit set and chlorophyll and proline contents
These results suggest tomato fruit types have different physiological and biochemical responses to LNT and, may have different mechanisms for LNT tolerance, which are a practical target for reducing heating costs in winter

Summary

Introduction

Abiotic stress significantly affects the vegetative and reproductive growth of plants and, eventually, their survival Abiotic stresses such as low or high temperature, drought and salinity due to unexpected environmental changes can cause almost 50% losses in the yield of major crops [1]. Low temperature is one of the critical factors affecting crop yield, by influencing various growth and development stages. Low temperature significantly reduces growth rate [2,3,4,5], days to flowers [6,7,8], the number of flowers [6,8,9,10] and fruit set [8,10,11,12], all of which affect fruit yield.

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