Optimizing aerial environments for greenhouse rose production utilizing whole-plant net CO2 exchange data
A daily growth model was developed for Samantha roses based on nondestructive measurements of whole-plant net CO2 exchange rate (NCER) under various aerial environmental conditions. Irradiance, CO2 concentration, and temperature accounted for 70, 20, and 5%, respectively, of the variance in whole-plant net photosynthesis explainable by a second-order polynomial model (R2 = 0.86). The predicted optimal temperatures for whole-plant net photosynthesis increased from 19 to 24 °C with increasing irradiance from 100 to 1200 μmol m−2 s−1 and CO2 concentration from 350 to 1500 μL L−1. Dark respiration rate increased exponentially with temperature and could be predicted by the Arrhenius equation. Even though respiratory carbon (C) loss at night increased linearly with daytime C gain, daily C gain (AC) was still proportional to daytime net photosynthesis. The relative contribution of irradiance (100–1200 μmol m−2s−1), day length (8–16 h), CO2 concentration (350–1500 μL L−1), day temperature (15–30 °C), and night temperature (15–25 °C) to plant daily growth was 64, 31, 4, 0.3, and 0.7%, respectively. Key words: Carbon balance, environment, modelling, photosynthesis, respiration, Rosa hybrida