PRE-AIR-CONDITIONED TEMPERATURE GRADIENT CHAMBERS FOR RESEARCH ON TEMPERATURE STRESS IN PLANTS

概要

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Cool summer damage is of great concern in northern Japan, the country's major rice producing region. A newly designed temperature gradient chamber (TGC) to study temperature stresses on crops is presented here. The TGC described is 3m high, 6m wide and 30m long and is equipped with a pre-air-conditioning facility. Temperature at the air inlet is controllable, unlike other TGCs developed so far, where air inlet temperatures are similar to those outdoors. When pre-cooling is in operation, the maximum temperature drop at the air inlet reached 10℃ below that of outdoors on hot summer days. Apparent back flow of air has often been considered as a factor in disturbing the anticipated temperature gradient in large TGCs. In the design presented here air circulation through perforated ducts along the side walls was found to be effective in minimizing this back flow. With this effective measure linear or curvilinear temperature gradients were consistently created along the longitudinal axis and temperature differences as large as 6-8℃ were maintained between the air inlet and the outlet. By exposing rice plants to a broad range of temperature regimes, including low temperatures, both developmental rate and sterility of flowers was varied to a considerable degree.
九州大学の論文