TITLE:
The Co-Involvement of Light and Air Temperature in Regulation of Sex Expression in Monoecious Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)
AUTHORS:
Lina Wang, Xiaoyu Yang, Zhonghai Ren, Xiufeng Wang
KEYWORDS:
Cucumber, Growth, Photothermal Ratio, Sex Expression
JOURNAL NAME:
Agricultural Sciences,
Vol.5 No.10,
August
21,
2014
ABSTRACT: The combination
effects of light and air temperature, which were expressed as photothermal
ratio (PTR), on the growth and sex expression of three monoecious cucumbers (Cucumis
sativus L. cv. “Xintaimici”, “Jinyan 3” and “Jinyan 4”) were studied with
hydroponics in this research. The results showed that with the increase of PTR,
different growth responses were observed in the three cucumber cultivars. In
contrast, high PTR (H-PTR, 0.86 mol·m-2·degree-day-1)
significantly increased the total number of female nodes and decreased the
total number of male nodes of the three monoecious cucumber cultivars compared
with cucumbers grown under low PTR (L-PTR, 0.64 mol·m-2·degree-day-1).
More photoassimilate was partitioned to fruits of three cucumber cultivars with
the increase of PTR, indicating that PTR-mediated femaleness of monoecious
cucumber might be attributed to the enhancement of photoassimilate
translocation from source organs to sink organs.