Abstract

Grafting of fruit-bearing vegetables has been widely used to increase the resistance to soil-borne diseases, to increase the tolerance to low temperature or to soil salinity, to increase the plant vigor, and to extend the duration of economic harvest time. After grafting, it is important to control the environment around grafted seedlings for the robust joining of a scion and rootstock. Usually the shading materials and plastic films are used to keep the high relative humidity and low light intensity in greenhouse or tunnel. It is quite difficult to optimally control the environment for healing and acclimation of grafted seedlings under natural light. So the farmers or growers rely on their experience for the production of grafted seedling with high quality. If artificial light is used as a lighting source for graft-taking of grafted seedlings, the light intensity and photoperiod can be easily controlled. The purpose of this study was to develop a prototype system for the graft-taking enhancement of grafted seedlings using artificial lighting and to investigate the effect of air current speed on the distribution of air temperature and relative humidity in a graft-taking enhancement system. A prototype graft-taking system was consisted by polyurethane panels, air-conditioning unit, system controller and lighting unit. Three band fluorescent lamps (FL20SEX-D/18, Kumho Electric, Inc.) were used as a lighting source. Anemometer (Climomaster 6521, KANOMAX), T-type thermocouples and humidity sensors (CHS-UPS, TDK) were used to measure the air current speed, air temperature and relative humidity in a graft-taking system. In this system, air flow acted as a driving force for the diffusion of heat and water vapor. Air current speed, air temperature and relative humidity controlled by a programmable logic controller (UP750, Yokogawa Electric Co) and an inverter (MOSCON-G3, SAMSUNG) had an even distribution. Distribution of air temperature and relative humidity in a graft-taking enhancement system was fairly affected by air current speed. Air current speed higher than 0.1m/s was required to obtain the even distribution of environmental factors in this system. At low air current speed of 0.1m/s, the evapotranspiration rate of grafted seedlings would be suppressed and thus graft-taking would be enhanced. This system could be used to investigate the effects of air temperature, relative humidity, air current speed and light intensity on the evaportranspiration rate of grafted seedlings.

Keywords

• Graft-taking enhancement system;
• Artificial lighting;
• Air flow;
• Grafted seedlings;
• Environment control

• 활착촉진 시스템;
• 인공광;
• 기류;
• 접목묘;
• 환경제어;