Improved chilling tolerance in glasshouse-grown potted sweet basil by end-of-production, short-duration supplementary far red light.

Sweet basil is a popular culinary herb used in many cuisines around the world and is widely grown commercially for retail as a live potted plant. However, basil is easily damaged by temperatures below 12 °C meaning plants must be transported from the grower to the retailer in a warm transport chain, adding considerable commercial cost in temperate countries. Improvement of chilling tolerance has been demonstrated in post-harvest crops such as tomato fruits and, indeed, fresh cut basil, by manipulation of the red:far red ratio of light provided to plants throughout the photoperiod and for a significant duration of the growing process in controlled environment chambers.

Addition of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Enhances Terpene Synthase Expression in Cultivars.

Culinary herbs are commercially cultivated for their wide range of volatile compounds that give characteristic aromas and tastes. Rosemary ( Spenn.) is an excellent model for assessment of methods improvement of volatile production as cultivars offer a wide variety of aromatic profiles due to the large family of terpene synthase genes.

UV-B antagonises shade avoidance and increases levels of the flavonoid quercetin in coriander (Coriandrum sativum).

Despite controlling a diverse array of regulatory processes in plants, UV-B wavelengths (280-315 nm) are attenuated by common greenhouse materials such as glass and polycarbonate and are therefore depleted in many commercial growing environments. In this study, we analysed the architecture, pigment accumulation and antioxidant capacity of coriander (Coriandrum sativum, also known as cilantro) plants grown with and without supplementary UV-B (1.5 µmol m s).