Growth, yield, and water use of okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) and eggplant (Solanum melongena) as influenced by rooting volume

Abstract

Many experiments are conducted in simulated confined spaces to provide controlled environments where plants are grown in pots with limited rooting volume to characterise fundamental physiological responses of plants to stress conditions such as soil water, soil salinity, irrigation water salinity, and plant nutrition. However, rooting volume in the pots can have a limiting effect on overall plant growth to varying degrees. This study was undertaken to quantify the effects of widely differing rooting volume on growth, yield, and water use of eggplant (Solanum melongena) and okra (Abelmoschus esculentus). Eggplant and okra experiments were conducted similarly, but as separate experiments. Both plants were grown in 3.6-litre (P1), 16-litre (P2), 36-litre (P3), and 52-litre (P4) pots. For eggplant and okra, evapotranspiration (ET) and all of the growth parameters including plant height, stem diameter, root and vegetative dry weight, root length, number of branches and fruit, and fruit yield significantly increased with increasing rooting volume. Pot volume started to affect plant height and ET after 3 weeks from transplanting. For both experiments, the highest yield and the highest yield based water-use efficiency (WUE yield ) were obtained from the P4 and P3 treatments, respectively. The highest WUE based on total biomass (WUE biomass ) was obtained from the P4 and P3 treatment of eggplant and okra, respectively. Both experiments exhibited similar morphological changes such as decreases in plant height, stem diameter, branching, root and vegetative dry weight, and root length to root restriction. As a result of this study it can be concluded that a pot size of 36 litres (P3) may be enough for okra growth, but even a 52-litre (P4) pot size may not provide unrestricted rooting volume for eggplant growth.

Effect of Glycine Betaine and Chitosan on Water Stress Tolerance of Summer Squash Plants.

“…These results may be due to that irrigation every 7 days were appropriate intervals to save the water around roots which caused good conditions to plant roots to absorb the required sufficient water and the available mineral elements, nitrogen and other macro-and micro-elements absorption, plant metabolism and in addition to the ability of soil to retain the water reasonable which reflected on photosynthetic process where the atmosphere in this period is sunny and hot and consequently on vegetative growth, chemical constituent, and this lead to significant increase on production of squash yield and fruit quality of squash plants. This finding is in agreement with (Kurunç and Unlukara, 2009) on okra and Ezzat et al (2015) on Jerusalem artichoke plants.…”

Effects of Drip Irrigation Emitter Density with Various Irrigation Levels on Physiological Parameters, Root, Yield, and Quality of Cherry Tomato

“…For each replication of the control (N1W1), the crop evapotranspiration between two consecutive irrigations was calculated using the water balance equation (weight-based, using a ±1 g weighing indicator) reported by [40] using ET c(CR) = I + (W n -W n+1 ), where ET c(CR) is the crop evapotranspiration of the control, I is the amount of applied irrigation water (L), W n and W n+1 are the pot weights before the nth and n + 1th irrigation (kg), respectively, and ETc (CR) is considered the standard amount of water (W s ) to be applied in control treatment for the next irrigation. The low irrigation treatment was irrigated according to the assigned percentage of the ETc of the control (ET c(CR) ≈ W s ).…”

Vegetable Crop Biomass Estimation Using Hyperspectral and RGB 3D UAV Data

“…A reduced height development, or even a decrease in height at plant maturity, can be found for many crops such as potatoes [55], corn [56], giant ragweed [57], or tomato [58]. Additionally, the reflectance of the entire plant changes throughout the growth [59] due to, e.g., the ripening of fruits and the change in chemical and water content [60], thus changes the relationship between biomass and reflectance [25]. An inclusion of shortwave infrared (>950 nm) spectral information at later growth stages might reduce this bias [61].…”