Abstract

We aimed to evaluate whether the air temperature, soil temperature, and luminosity in a low tunnel covered with agricultural mesh screening affected the characteristics of kale production. The study was conducted on the cultivation of kale in six different growing environments. The experimental setup consisted of randomized block design (RBD) with factorial analysis (2 × 6) with four repetitions. The kale (Brassica oleracea L. var. acephala) hybrids Hi Crop and Kobe F1 were used as plant material. The growing environments were open field and protected environments consisting of low tunnels, each covered with a different mesh screen: red, thermo-reflective silver, black, tissue-non-tissue (TNT), and organza fabric. Sensors were installed within each environment to monitor air temperature and soil temperature. The TNT screen resulted in the highest air and soil temperatures and lower yield. The black mesh resulted in lower temperatures than other coverings. Organza fabric provided the best yield (22.8%) compared to open field and it was 9.89to42.19 % more productive compared to the other meshes. Organza fabric was the best environment for the cultivation of kale in tropical climates. These data confirm that kale biomass production was greatly affected by stress high temperature.

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