Plant Growth and Fruit Quality of Blueberry in a Controlled Room under Artificial Light

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify the plant growth and fruit quality of blueberry in a controlled room under artificial light. Cultivars used were a northern highbush ‘Blueray’, and two southern highbush, ‘Misty’ and ‘Sharpblue’. A comparative study was carried out of growth characteristics, photosynthetic potential and fruit quality analysis in different growing environments, in particular focusing on plants growing in a glasshouse under natural sunlight and plants in a controlled room under artificial light. Environmental conditions of the controlled room under artificial light were 15 to 25°C, 50 to 70% humidity, 150 to 350 μmol·m−2·s−1 light intensity, and a 10-hour photoperiod from the primary experiment. In these growing environments, normal fruits developed from all the tested cultivars by successful growth without decreasing plant vigor and leaf photosynthetic ability until fruit harvesting time compared to the cultivars grown in the glasshouse under natural sunlight condition. Moreover, it was confirmed that high-quality fruits could be harvested in a controlled environment to increase fruit production with high SSC % and high anthocyanin content but low acid % in ‘Blueray’ and ‘Misty’, but not ‘Sharpblue’. Finally, this report presents the possibility of high-quality blueberry production in a controlled environment under artificial light conditions with some cultivars.