Plant growth and yield components
Table 1 displays yield components i.e. seed number, TSW, and seed yield
for the two categories of seeds collected from and
podsL≥5cm and podsL<5cm. The
total seed yield (TSY, including seeds from both categories of pods)
ranged from 8.71 to 9.92 g plant-1, with no
significant S effect. Under LS, no significant decreases in TSY were
observed in the T-modalities whereas under HS, significant decreases
were observed in mod1 (-24.2% relative to HS T-control) and mod2
(-11.1% relative to HS T-control). These decreases were due to the seed
yield from podsL<5cm since seed yield from
podsL≥5cm remained unchanged in T-control plants (Table
1). The total seed numbers were not impacted by the T-modality but a
slight S-effect was observed (p<0.05), with LS values being
5% lower than HS values on average. This effect was also attributed to
seeds from podsL<5cm as the number of seeds
from podsL≥5cm was not impacted by S supply. The TSWs
from podsL<5cm were 3.33 g and 3.22 g in the
HS and LS T-controls, respectively, while the equivalent
podsL≥5cm values were 3.73 and 3.5 g. For a given
T-modality and a given S condition, the
podsL<5cm had a lower TSW than the
podsL≥5cm, although the differences were significant
only under LS for mod3 and mod4 (Table 1, t-tests not shown). Under both
HS and LS, no T-modality effects on the TSW were observed in either pod
categories. These results confirmed that (i) seeds from
podsL≥5cm had reached the onset of seed maturation and
(ii) seeds developing in podsL<5cm or seeds
from fertilized flowers that developed after the temperature sequences,
all benefited from increased sink strength due to young pod abortion or
reductions in late flowering.
In the following result sections, seed characteristics were measured
solely on seeds from podsL≥5cm.