Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Horticultural
Production
System
Scale
Layer of
perception
Genetics
« Disciplinary filter »
Molecular
physiology
ecophysiology
molecule
cell
tissue
organ
plant
canopy
Fig. 2.4
Multi-scaled view of horticulture, encompassing different “layers of perception” and
“disciplinary filters”. (Source: Xu et al.
2011
)
a restricted set of output variables while neglecting most others. The same applies
to horticultural production systems, yet horticulture is by its very nature multidis-
ciplinary and multi-scaled: research in horticulture is carried out at the interface
between different subjects (botany, genetics, agro-ecology, physiology, and phys-
ics) and at different scales (molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, shoot, plant, and crop
population). Having already been applied to model the structural and physiological
dynamics of a diverse range of agricultural and horticultural crop plants, functional-
structural plant modelling (FSPM) is a paradigm which lends itself as a suitable tool
in the quest towards horticultural systems biology. Horticultural production systems
are artificial biological systems, which differ from natural biological systems in that
their environment is more or less controlled and that restrictions are applied to the
crop plants in terms of expression of physiological and morphogenetic processes
(e.g. by treatment with chemicals to reduce the number of flowers or to manipulate
shoot extension, or by mechanical removal of organs in order to enhance flower-
ing). In current plant modeling, horticultural production systems are perceived as
operating at different scales and through filters relevant to the particular scientific
interests of the research worker. Thus while a physicist could be content to investi-
gate the air movement within a greenhouse or the tensile stress in bending shoots, a
molecular biologist will perhaps strive to understand bud break in rose as a function
of the metabolic regulatory network of sugar-signalling; a physiologist might be in-
terested in the relationships between source and sink organs, by characterizing pho-
tosynthesis and growth processes at the organ and plant level. In all these endeav-
ors, the individuals involved largely remain within their disciplines and schools of
thought, for practical or historical reasons or simply out of comfort coming from
