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Garden with Insight v1.0 Help: Plant drawing next day functions: flower/fruit next day


This simulation models flowers and fruits as the same object in different stages, which is realistic because a fruit grows out of an ovary at the base of a flower. Actually, what we generally call "flowers" can have one ovary or many, but in this simulation we specifically define a flower as having one ovary out of which one fruit grows. The flower/fruit object goes through three major stages. As a flower bud, the object demands biomass according to linear growth towards the optimal biomass for a flower. As an open flower, the object demands biomass according to linear growth to reach full flower size. As a fruit, the object demands biomass according to an S curve of fruit growth. In each of these stages growth is limited in speed by a minimum number of days in each stage. Finally the fruit stops growing after some number of days even if it has not reached full size.

For plants with separate male and female flowers, only female flowers can have fruit (since they have ovaries). Both male and female flowers will drop off the plant after a specified number of days (a parameter). Usually for plants with both male and female flowers the male drop-off period is short and the female drop-off period is very long. Both flowers and fruits stop drawing themselves if their live/dead biomass ratio is less than 10%. Fruits draw themselves as unripe (using the unripe color parameter) for a specified number of days, then draw themselves using their ripe color. Ripeness has no physiological simulation here, nor do the fruits rot individually; fruit decay is done only in the model plant.

More on the biomass partitioning submodel
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Updated: May 4, 1998. Questions/comments on site to webmaster@kurtz-fernhout.com.
Copyright © 1998 Paul D. Fernhout & Cynthia F. Kurtz.