2020 Volume 82 Issue 4 Pages 347-353
As the largest facility cultivation in Japan, tomato cultivation has been managed by considering the maximizing photosynthesis with the leaf area as the index. We investigated the relationship between the leaf area and the morphological and mechanical characteristics of the petiole of the leaf of two tomato varieties, based on the hypothesis that the mechanical parameters of the petiole as the supporting strength increase with increasing leaf weight/growth. Results showed a high correlation between the leaf area and the mechanical parameters of the petiole during the earlier growth stage, which supports our hypothesis, as well as the high accuracy of our leaf area estimation model using the flexural rigidity and the long diameter of the petiole.
