A review of source-sink association for enhancing yield of fruit vegetables

Abstract

Fruit vegetables are a component in a healthy diet. The dry weight gain and fruit production in fruit vegetables, being dependent on their photosynthetic activities, have been studied, and strategies that enhance fruit development have been discussed based on their source-sink associations. The efficiencies of the photosynthetic leaves and green colour herbaceous stems as the source capacity are critical in influencing the fruit load as fruits and seeds within them are plant parts that demand the photosynthetic product. This review paper discusses light intensity and quality, mineral metabolism, notably nitrogen balance, and leaf-to-fruit rationing that affect the leaf area index and net assimilation rate in crops. Manual leaf removal is among the husbandry practices that reduce the shaded leaves enabling the crops to utilize the resources in their environment more effectively. However, the studies on the source-sink relationship have been focused on a limited number of fruit vegetables, namely tomato and capsicum. This paper aims to gather some useful insights on source-sink manipulation on crops for future studies on many other fruit vegetables like cucurbits, okra etc. This paper also mentions the application of source-sink interaction models as a potential tool in predicting the economic yield of the fruit crops.