Author
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Sinclair, Thomas |
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MUCHOW, R. - CSIRO, BRISBANE, AS |
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Submitted to: Field Crops Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 1/15/1999 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: It has been discovered that crop weight accumulation is very highly correlated with the amount of solar radiation (i.e., sunlight) that is intercepted by a crop. The ratio of crop weight accumulation and intercepted radiation is defined as crop radiation use efficiency. Most evidence indicates that for a particular crop species that radiation use efficiency is nearly constant over a wide range of environmental conditions. A recent paper by Kiniry et al. suggested, however, that radiation use efficiency of maize and sorghum varied with the atmospheric humidity in which the crop was grown. Unfortunately, the paper by Kiniry et al. contained a number of flaws in their interpretation of the literature, execution of their experiments, and analysis of their data so that their conclusions are suspect. This paper was written to review these flaws and question their basic conclusion. There still appears to be little evidence that humidity influences radiation use efficiency of maize and sorghum. Technical Abstract: Occam's Razor dictates that the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is the most desired. In a recent paper by Kiniry et al. (Field Crops Res., 56:265), Occam's Razor was overlooked in favor of a hypothetical relationship of decreasing radiation use efficiency (RUE) with increasing vapor pressure deficit (VPD). Their conclusion is challenged for three reasons. First, there is virtually no background information that support such a relationship. Second, no rigorous test of the data of Kiniry et al. was presented to confirm such a conclusion over the hypothesis that RUE was not sensitive to VPD. Third, there are concerns in the methods used to experimentally estimate VPD and RUE. |
