Systemic research of plant growth and stress in a specially designed climatic hydroponics system

Abstract

AbstractModern plant physiology deals with a plant at different hierarchical levels, from the ecosystem to molecular ones, so there is a demand to integrate the knowledge obtained at these levels. Examining plant growth and cold resistance, namely the intermediate levels (organism, organs, tissues, multicellular) often reveals the peculiarities of the functional–structural organization of the entire plant. The paper presents an integrated climatic hydroponic system, designed to implement a physical‐holistic experiment, accompanied by a particular methodology of systemic research. It covers the following main steps, which are the verification of the experimental system, production of high‐quality experimental material, including direct measurements and mathematical data analysis. The latter involves the decomposition of the phenomena under study, synthesis of data and the extraction of non‐linear components. The studies on the growth and stress of Poaceae plants (Lolium multiflorum, Festuca pratensis, Festulolium braunii) have already provided some significant results. A new boundary of the leaf meristem was proposed, adaptive growth bifurcations were discovered in the meristem, and a cells rounding phenomenon was detected. Using this top‐down approach, further research directions are delineated towards the lower hierarchical levels. Finally, the presented approach allows for the integration of data obtained at different plant investigation levels.