A Control Method Based on an Artificial Intelligence Technique and Its Application for Controlling Plant Environment

A Soil Temperature/Short-Wave Radiation Growth Model for Butterhead Lettuce Under Protected Cultivation in Flanders

“…Although deleterious effects of suboptimal soil temperatures on early vegetative development have been ascribed to several physiological mechanisms, such as reduced root growth, nutrient uptake, water absorption, and hormone production in the roots, further crop research has revealed that temperature responses of leaf elongation at early growth stages are mainly due to divergences in shoot apical meristem temperatures, which in turn depend on soil temperature (Barlow et al, 1977;Coelho and Dale, 1980;Tinker, 1980;Steenhuizen, 1987;Engels and Marschner, 1990;Van Der Boon et al, 1990;White et al, 1991;Ben-Haj-Salah and Tardieu, 1995;Sayed, 1995;Ben-Haj-Salah and Tardieu, 1996;Bergh et al, 1998;Lafarge et al, 1998;Engels, 1999;Stone et al, 1999;Tardieu et al, 2000;Gavito et al, 2001;Reymond et al, 2003). However, to increase soil temperature in the early stages of the growing period, a somewhat higher air temperature is also required and it is therefore, not surprising to find leaf development or percentage soil cover to be determined by air temperature (Bensink, 1971;Bierhuizen and Feddes, 1973;Scaife et al, 1987;Harazono et al, 1988;Gysi, 1990;Brewster and Sutherland, 1993;Van Straten et al, 2000;Escobar-Gutiérrez and Burns, 2002).…”