Abstract

This study investigates the effect of daily short-term (2 h) low temperature treatment (12 °C) (DROP) on photosynthetic water use efficiency (WUE) at leaf level of cucumber plants. The DROP treatment caused an increase of WUE in the leaves treated by DROP during their early growth (D1), but not in leaves which were already mature during the treatment (D2). The WUE increase in D1 compared to D2 leaves was due to higher net photosynthetic rate at low temperature or lower transpiration rate at common temperature. The elongation of the DROP treatment from early growth stage until full maturation of leaves did not lead to an additional increase in WUE compared to the leaves treated by DROP only during their early growth.

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