Crop physiology and crop modelling

The research of the Crop physiology and crop modelling subgroup (dr. Ep Heuvelink) studies in an analytical, quantitative way the effects of environmental factors (e.g. light spectrum) on crop growth and yield, making use of simulation models. The research addresses the following areas for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) crops, i.e. crops grown in greenhouses and vertical farms:

Light interception and crop photosynthesis
Plant development, especially flowering and fruit set
Biomass partitioning based on organ sink strength
Yield gap analysis

Our top 3 publications

Heuvelink, E. (1999). Evaluation of a dynamic simulation model for tomato crop growth and development. Annals of Botany 83: 413-422. DOI 10.1006/anbo.1998.0832 (link)

Ji, Y., Nuñez Ocaña, D., Choe, D., Larsen, D., Marcelis, L.F.M., Heuvelink, E., 2020. Far-red radiation stimulates dry mass partitioning to fruits by increasing fruit sink strength in tomato New Phytologist 228: 1914–1925. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.16805 (link)

Rivas, A; Liu, K and Heuvelink, E., 2021. LED Intercanopy lighting in blackberry during spring improves yield as a result of increased number of fruiting laterals and has a positive carryover effect on autumn yield. Frontiers in Plant Sience 12: 620642. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.620642 (link)

Full list of publications: Research@WUR, Google Scholar and Orchid