Physiological Studies in Horticultural Crops -An Overview

Abstract

Plant physiology is the science which is connected to the material and energy exchange, growth and development, as well as movement of plant. The field of crop physiology includes the study of all the internal activities of crop plants, which are studied at many levels in the scale of size and time. Physiological study in horticultural crops like other crops, involves the basic and practically useful studies on processes such as water and nutrients in plant, nutrient supply of plants, production of primary and secondary metabolites, photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, evapo-transpiration, plant stress physiology, growth and development responsible for crop production with the techniques to quantify and optimization of these processes for final economic yield production. The production of horticultural crops can be characterized as an open and highly complex system affected by climate, soil, cropping system and interactions between these factors. Plant growth and development are directly and indirectly influenced by environmental factors, in order to obtain a successful production it is essential to understand clearly how these factors affect plant physiology. This paper review the studies related with the major environmental factors and their physiological effect on production of horticultural crops.