Modelling the effects of osmotic stress on tomato fruit development

Whereas most high-tech tomato greenhouses focus primarily on high production yields, consumers prefer a higher quality product. Dry matter content is one of the key factors determining fruit quality, and is known to be substantially influenced by altering the salinity of the nutrient solution. While this imposed osmotic stress can improve fruit quality, this often goes hand in hand with a decrease in production due to less water accumulation in the fruit. A more thorough insight in the underlying mechanisms might contribute to a better understanding and eventually steering of this delicate balance. To achieve this deeper knowledge, we combined intensive monitoring of plant and fruit physiological variables with a model-based approach. An experiment on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L. 'Dirk') was set up in a greenhouse, where two different water treatments were imposed by altering the salinity (Electric Conductivity, EC) of the substrate. Besides plant variables such as sap flow, stem diameter variation and stem water potential, fruit growth and quality parameters were measured as well. These data were then used in a recently developed virtual tomato plant and fruit model, which is capable of modelling both plant and fruit growth as well as fruit quality (sugars and acids) and xylem and phloem contribution to fruit growth, but which has not been tested under salt stressed conditions. Results did not only show that the model can be used to predict fruit growth during salt stress conditions, but also which model parameters and related plant traits are affected most. This is an important step towards a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms controlling fruit development under osmotic stress

Dancing in the Kitchens of History:Eileen Power (1889-1940)

Eileen Power (1889-1940) was one of Britain’s most eminent female historians of the first half of the twentieth century. She was known for her beauty, fashionability and ever-lasting youth, as well as her scholarship in medieval and social-economic history. In 1931, she was appointed to the chair in Economic History at the London School of Economics. She thereby became one of just two women who achieved this degree of academic recognition at a co-educational university before 1940. At a time when women were firmly marginalized within academia and the very notion of the professional historian was intertwined with notions of masculinity, Eileen Power overcame all obstacles and achieved a remarkable career. The question is, how? How did Eileen Power become a historian? In asking this question, this book works from the presupposition that scientific excellence alone is never enough to achieve academic recognition. What is perhaps even more important – especially for women – is the crafting of a credible, trustworthy scholarly identity. The result is an alternative approach to the genre of biography. Rather than describing who Eileen Power ‘really was’, this book examines a wide range of sources (including diaries, letters, publications, academic reviews, photographs and even a fairy tale) to outline how Eileen Power presented herself and how this helped her gain recognition. Dancing in the Kitchens of History charts Eileen Power’s process of becoming a historian, showing that in the making of her career, her performances in university lecture halls were just as important as her famous kitchen dances