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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Biophysics and Modeling
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1543699
This article is part of the Research Topic Integrative Biophysical Models to Uncover Fundamental Processes in Plant Growth, Development, and Physiology View all articles

Prediction of secondary metabolites in hydroponically produced tomatoes : multivariate influence of abiotic climatic factors as well as photosynthesis and transpiration rates

Provisionally accepted
Grigorij Devadze Grigorij Devadze 1Dennis Dannehl Dennis Dannehl 2Annika Nerlich Annika Nerlich 3Uwe Schmidt Uwe Schmidt 2Stefan Streif Stefan Streif 1,4*
  • 1 Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany
  • 2 Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany
  • 3 Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • 4 Department of Bioresources, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Fraunhofer Society (FHG), Giessen, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This is the first study who presents an approach to predict secondary metabolites content in tomatoes using multivariate time series classification of greenhouse sensor data, which includes climatic conditions as well as photosynthesis and transpiration rates. The aim was to find the necessary conditions in a greenhouse to determine the maximum content of secondary metabolites, as higher levels in fruits can promote human health. For this, we defined multiple classification tasks and derived suitable classification function. Cross-validated high accuracy results demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.Considering a period of three weeks, we found that PPFD levels between 396.0 μmol/m 2 s and 511.2 μmol/m 2 s as well as transpiration rates ranging from 4.4 mg H2O/m 2 s to 7.47 mg H2O/m 2 s were observed as optimal for the contents of beta carotene, lutein, and lycopene. Optimal contents for naringenin and phloretin diglucoside can be achieved at lower PPFD ranges from 229.4 μmol/m 2 s to 431.2 μmol/m 2 s and from 35.76 μmol/m 2 s to 262.28 μmol/m 2 s and at lower transpiration rates from 4.71 to 6.47 mg H2O/m 2 s and from 3.04 to 4.26 mg H2O/m 2 s, respectively. It was discovered for the first time that, photosynthesis rates also play a significant role in the accumulation of secondary metabolites. Photosynthesis rates between 0.39 μmol CO2/m 2 s and 1.21 μmol CO2/m 2 s over three weeks were crucial for the optimal accumulation of phenolic acids such as caffeic acid derivates, coumaric acid hexoside, ferulic acid hexoside and coumaroylquinic acids as well as for quercetin and flavonoid. An optimal temperature range between 20.94 and 21.53 °C and a PPFD from 250.0 to 375.2 Deleted: tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.

    Keywords: greenhouse, Classification, Data augmentation, relative humidity, temperature, CO2, PPFD, light intensity secondary metabolites

    Received: 23 Dec 2024; Accepted: 31 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Devadze, Dannehl, Nerlich, Schmidt and Streif. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Stefan Streif, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany

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