Development and Density of Stomata on Fruit Surfaces during Fruit Growth in Nectarine

Modelling the Effect of Fruit Growth on Surface Conductance to Water Vapour Diffusion

“…Stomata on the fruit surface area are set at anthesis (Hieke et al, 2002) and differentiated during the rapid initial fruit growth (Ishida et al, 1990). Thus, the number of stomata on a fruit is determined early, at a given DAFB denoted t o , presumed to be independent of the fruit development.…”

“…where S sto is the surface area of the stomata, and S rck (t) the surface area of the remaining cracks (cm 2 ). As the surface area per stoma is very small (8Á12 • 10 À6 cm 2 , according to Ishida et al, 1990), the surface area of stomata was considered negligible compared with total fruit surface area (S f ) and so was ignored in the following.…”

“…The parameters of the conductance model were estimated by minimizing the sum of squares of errors between simulated and observed data using the non-linear least-squares regression function. Three weeks after full bloom, the pericarp meristematic activity is declining (Masia et al, 1992) and the stomata development phase is assumed to be completely achieved, according to the observations of Ishida et al (1990). We thus defined t o as equal to 21 DAFB.…”