Page 146 - FRUTAS DEL TRÓPICO

146 Frutas del trópico

intertwined, identifying stress mechanisms and methods to alleviate them often requires long-
term, multi-disciplinary research (i.e., working together with entomologists, soil scientists,

plant pathologists, geneticists, horticulturists, hydrologist, etc.).

The objectives of environmental plant physiology are to quantify the mechanisms by

which abiotic and biotic factors affect plant growth and yield, and to determine optimum envi-

ronmental conditions for maximum plant growth and yield. Environmental physiology doesn’t

always focus on determining ways to relieve plant stress. Sometimes the goal of environmental

physiology is to cause stress for a desired result, for example girdling or drought to stimulate

flowering. Often responses to stress and identification of stress mechanisms are very plant

specific and this is often a problem for subtropical tropical fruit crops. Relatively little is known
about the environmental physiology of many subtropical and tropical fruit crops, as compa-

red to herbaceous crops or even temperate fruit crops. Possible reasons for this include: 1)

it is more difficult to work with tropical fruit crops than temperate fruit crops due to constant

growth of subtropical and tropical fruit trees, 2) there are not as many researchers working

with these as other crops and 3) it often involves expensive equipment that historically was not

available in many areas where tropical fruit was grown.

Common environmental physiology terminology

Following is a brief description of some of the terminology used in environmental physiolo-

gy studies at the whole plant level, with specific examples using subtropical and tropical fruit

crops. In this brief review, it would not be possible to cover all of the techniques and termino-

logy, but the most widely used and common terminology is discussed.

Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas