Digital Automation of Energy-Efficient In Vitro Irradiation of Orchard Plum Micro Cuttings

Abstract

The yield and efficiency of cultivation of any crop depends on the quality of the planting material. The most promising method of modern horticulture, which makes it possible to significantly increase its environmental sustainability, is to obtain planting material, improved by culture of isolated tissues in vitro. There is blue honeysuckle, raspberries, garden strawberries, steppe cherries, domestic plums, and other crops studied in vitro in the Udmurt Federal Research Centre of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Udmurt FRC UB RAS). The light regime has a great influence on plant growth under in vitro conditions. A review of specialized literature showed the energy efficiency of the pulsed mode of plants irradiation as significantly reducing power consumption compared to stationary (continuous) one with the same quality of the grown products. In the Udmurt FRC UB RAS, pulsed irradiation of garden strawberry explants in vitro made it possible to increase their rooting by 10 %. The mode of irradiation in modern illuminators with LEDs under in vitro conditions can be changed by means of digital automated control systems. This makes it possible to implement an energy-saving pulsed irradiation mode that allows efficient electricity use. The purpose of this work was to develop a digital system for automated control of the operation of the irradiator with LEDs for the implementation of an energy-efficient pulsed mode of plant irradiation in vitro and its experimental testing. Experiments conducted with it on plum micro-cuttings showed that the largest leaf area (119 %) compared to the control was obtained using light pulses with a duration of 0.8 s, which confirms the feasibility of using a pulsed irradiation mode and optimizes its parameters for these conditions.