Estimating canopy leaf physiology of tomato plants grown in a solar greenhouse: Evidence from simulations of light and thermal microclimate using a Functional-Structural Plant Model

Analyzing the Impact of Greenhouse Planting Strategy and Plant Architecture on Tomato Plant Physiology and Estimated Dry Matter

“…The three-dimensional virtual sunlight model, solar greenhouse model, and tomato model, as described in Zhang Y. et al (2020) was constructed using the 3D open-source modeling platform GroIMP ( Kniemeyer, 2008 ). Zhang Y. et al (2020) predicted the organ-level temperatures of tomato leaflets inside the canopy on a sunny day, followed by simulation of the tomato canopy organ-level photosynthesis on sunny and cloudy days with the predicted datasets agreeing well with the measured data ( Zhang Y. et al, 2021 ). In this study, we used the three-dimensional models as described above to reconstruct the tomato canopy ( Supplementary Figure 1 ), mimicking the plant architectures and planting strategies, and then used the validated extended temperature and photosynthesis models to calculate the tomato canopy light interception, temperature, stomatal conductance, and photosynthesis performance with each case under the same greenhouse microclimate conditions.…”

“…The reference greenhouse structure located at Shenyang Agricultural University (41°49′N, 123°34′E) has a dimension of 60 m length, 8 m span, 4 m ridge height, and a roof projection of 1.5 m, with a 2.5 m high north wall. Tomato crops were grown inside the greenhouse with N–S orientation, same as the planting pattern 2 ( Figure 2 ), with a furrow distance of 1 m and a plant spacing of 0.4 m. Detailed measurements for this solar greenhouse were conducted with measurements of outdoor and indoor solar radiation, temperature, wind speed, humidity, tomato canopy radiation, temperature, and photosynthesis at various canopy depths ( Zhang Y. et al, 2020 ; Zhang Y. et al, 2021 ).…”

“…It therefore might lead to wrong directions or get stuck into a local optimal. The rapid technology development in recent years enables systematic in silico studies of different plant architectures and their interactions with their environment to simulate plant microenvironment conditions and physiology like microlight climate or photosynthesis on high resolution ( Zhang Y. et al, 2020 ; Zhang Y. et al, 2021 ) under different conditions, such as planting pattern or plant architecture ( Figure 1 ). The greenhouse structure, planting strategy, and plant architecture are interdependent to each other, and knowing dynamic dependencies between these traits can make sense, for example, to profile photosynthesis performance or to instruct the greenhouse management.…”

Determination of the Optimal Orientation of Chinese Solar Greenhouses Using 3D Light Environment Simulations

“…It is worth noting that most of these models were applied to the field crops and rarely consider the interaction between greenhouse environment and crop populations [41,42]. The significance of constructing 3D model with GroIMP is to clarify the interaction between CSG and crops, so as to improve the high-precision production of facility agriculture [35,43]. In addition, the GroIMP modelling platform can also be used for artificial light supplements for crops and other research [44,45].…”

“…In addition, the GroIMP modelling platform can also be used for artificial light supplements for crops and other research [44,45]. Especially in the greenhouse crop photosynthesis simulation accuracy, GroIMP is so far a more ideal modelling platform [43,46].…”