Effects of Elevated Temperature and Potassium on Biomass and Quality of Dark Red ‘Lollo Rosso’ Lettuce

Abstract

Abstract:Lettuce is an economically important crop for small and medium-sized growers. When grown in adverse environmental conditions, lettuce is vulnerable to a deterioration of yield and quality. Research concerning the impact of elevated potassium (K) levels on leafy vegetables, such as lettuce, is lacking. Therefore, seeds of dark-red 'Lollo' lettuce were germinated under greenhouse conditions at 25/20 • C (day/night). Plants were transferred into 11-L containers and placed into growth chambers at 25 and 33 • C. Plants were grown with K treatments of 117.3 (control), 234.6 (2×), 469.2 (4×), and 4) 938.4 (8×) mg·L −1 . Increasing K treatments resulted in a negative quadratic response on lettuce dry mass and generated 14% more leaf calcium at 234.6 mg·L −1 . An increase in temperature from 25 to 33 • C increased leaf dry matter and biomass by 40% and 43%, respectively. Leaf water content increased by 3% as temperature increased. Plants grown at 33 • C had greater quercetin glycosides compared to plants grown at 25 • C. The results from this study suggest that temperature is a stronger regulatory factor than increasing K in the determination of lettuce yield and quality. Increasing K concentration to 234.6 mg·L −1 results in greater concentrations of leaf minerals without compromising plant yield.

Interactive Impacts of Temperature and Elevated CO2 on Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) Root and Shoot Morphology and Growth

“…While under high-temperature treatment, the index of flavonoids of basil decreased considerably. These findings contradict many studies [31,38,39] because increased flavonoids are usually associated with thermophilic plant defense mechanisms against heat stress. Moreover, increased growth temperature from 30/22 • C to 38/30 • C for basil under elevated CO 2 produced more Anth content.…”

Preserving the nutritional quality of crop plants under a changing climate: importance and strategies

“…Conversely, there were higher concentrations of Fe in waterlogged roots of stressed plants (Smethurst et al 2005).To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies yet that have looked at the combined effect of waterlogging and eCO 2 and their influence on plant nutritional quality, two conditions that are likely to interact in the future. Sublett et al (2018) studied the consequence of eT (+8°C) on lettuce in a greenhouse experiment, and found a decrease in leaf Mg, K, Ca Mn and Mo concentrations. When looking at temperature and eCO 2 , it was shown that the combination of both factors may restore soybean (Köhler et al 2018) and wheat (Asif et al 2019) seed Fe and Zn concentrations to levels obtained under ambient CO 2 (aCO 2 ).…”

Gastrophysics: Nudging consumers toward eating more leafy (salad) greens

“…The colour variety of leafy greens can easily be increased by incorporating red leaves, such as the dark red (one might almost say purple) of Lollo Rosso. This the more colourful version of the pale green Lollo Bionda (Sublett, Barickman, & Sams, 2018). There are, in fact, a number of popular red lettuce cultivars, including "New Red Fire Lettuce", "Red Sails Lettuce", "Redina Lettuce", "Galactic Lettuce", and the "Benito Lettuce".…”