Hi all, I am asking mostly the plant physiologists out there, but all opinions are welcome!
We are running an experiment trying to classify plant performance (mostly emergence) of the same plant species (potato seed-tubers) originating from different farms.
The question we would like to address is if different origins of the plants show different emergence performance.
In my experience the best way to do that would be to grow plants in the growth rooms, in optimal conditions and observe differences under those conditions. This does not guarantee the same performance in the field of course, but it's as close as it gets.
What is your opinion on growing those plants also in sub-optimal conditions in the climate room to get closer to some stress conditions. Seeing as stress in the field is very different and depends on many factors I am not sure if this would be a valid approach?
Could you offer any arguments for both cases ?
Thank you for your time.
Yes it is the right approach, you can do it in greenhouse condition, providing the required environmental conditions and growing in pot soil.
Growing plants in growth room with maintained environmental condition should be the 1st approach. Because growing outside will not show you a proper result because of varying conditions. So growing in growth room with maintained condition will be best.
But try to maintain the required condition. If some stress is there in your area, you can maintain stress condition in growth room also.
Dear Ioannis,
In my opinion, comparing the performances of different cultivars should be done in natural condition (field condition), where you also have to repeat the experiment over a number of site-years.
For many resons, mainly logistics, you would choose to do the experiment in a controlled condition. In this case I would go for the optimal growth conditions. Because between optimal conditions and field conditions there is a huge gray area.
Hi Ali,
We agree on growing under optimal conditions. Especially since stress is a vague term depending on plant species and it can manifest very differently in real conditions with more and shorter temperature extremes for example that you cannot really replicate in many growth rooms.
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