Evaluation of the effect of elevated concentrations of CO in a greenhouse for tomato cultivation

Ishii, Satomi; Yamazaki, Haruaki*; Suzui, Nobuo; Yin, Y.-G.; Kawachi, Naoki; Shimada, Hiroaki*; Fujimaki, Shu

Tomato is popularly grown in environmentally controlled system such as a greenhouse for improvement of bioproduction. It is important to control the condition in the greenhouse for increasing the translocation of fixed carbon from the leaves to the growing fruits. Elevation of COconcentration is widely employed for that purpose; however, it is difficult to estimate its effect quantitatively because tomato plants have too large inter-individual variations with developing fruits. In this study, we employed a PETIS which is a live-imaging system of nutrients in plant body using short-lived radioisotopes including C. We also established a closed cultivation system to feed a test plant with CO at set concentrations of 400, 1,500 and 3,000 ppm and a pulse of CO.