Abstract:
Facility agriculture was limited by short light exposure time, low light intensity, and uneven light distribution compared with outside conditions. Light is one of the important factors affecting the yield and quality of winter crops in greenhouse; the growth and development of crops are particularly affected by light quality, a critical parameter of light. The purpose of this study was reducing the problem of insufficient light in protective horticultural systems in low light areas, and achieving light environment regulation for tomato cultivation under low light stress, by selecting suitable combinations of light quality for greenhouse winter supplementary lighting. The tomato of "Provence" was used as the experimental material. There were seven treatments which were red-blue light (RB: 100 µmol/(m
2·s) R and 100 µmol/(m
2·s) B), RB+red light (RB+R: RB+100 µmol/(m
2·s) R), RB+blue light (RB+B: RB+100 µmol/(m
2·s) B), RB+green light (RB+G: RB+50 µmol/(m
2·s) G), RB+far-red light (RB+FR: RB+30 µmol/(m
2·s) FR), and RB+ultraviolet A (RB+UVA: RB+10 µmol/(m
2·s) UVA) and no supplementary lighting (CK). This experiment started from the fruit setting stage and involved two stages of supplementary lighting. The early stage supplied lighting for 25 days from 06:00-09:00 and 17:00-22:00, while the late stage supplied continuous lighting for 28 days from 06:00-22:00. The effects of these LED (light emitting diode) light quality treatments on photosynthetic pigments, photosynthetic parameters, fruit ripening related indicators, yield composition, and quality of winter greenhouse tomatoes in low light areas had been studied, and fuzzy membership function and variation weighting coefficient method were used to evaluate the appearance and nutritional quality of fruits. The results showed that compared with CK, supplementary light treatments of different light quality significantly increased the content of tomato photosynthetic pigments and photosynthetic rate (
P < 0.05), accelerated fruit ripening, and improved yield and quality. Specifically, RB treatment had the highest number of color changing fruits and soluble solids content, and its sugar-acid ratio was significantly higher than that of CK, and the per-plant yield of RB treatment increased by 12.00% compared to CK (
P < 0.05). RB+R treatment showed significantly higher photosynthetic rate and single fruit weight than those of CK, and the per-plant yield was significantly increased by 24.00% compared to CK (
P < 0.05). RB+B treatment had the highest number of fruits per plant and per-plant yield significantly increased by 19.20% compared to CK (
P < 0.05). RB+G treatment reached the highest chlorophyll content and fruit ripening rate, and the fruit color parameter (
a* value) and lycopene content were significantly higher than those of CK, and the per-plant yield significantly increased by 13.60% compared to CK (
P < 0.05). The sugar-acid ratio and total phenolic content of RB+FR treatment were the highest, and the per-plant yield significantly increased by 15.20% compared to CK (
P < 0.05). RB+UVA treatment achieved the highest soluble sugar content and per-plant yield significantly increased by 13.60% compared to CK (
P < 0.05). Compared with RB, adding red light (R) significantly improved fruit color parameters (
b* value), sugar-acid ratio, transverse diameter, and per-plant yield (increased by 10.71%) (
P < 0.05); adding blue light (B) significantly increased chlorophyll content (
P < 0.05); adding green light (G) significantly increased fruit color parameters (
a*,
b* values), sugar-acid ratio, and lycopene content, promoting fruit ripening (
P < 0.05); adding far-red light (FR) significantly increased the sugar-acid ratio and total phenolic content (
P < 0.05); adding ultraviolet A (UVA) significantly increased the sugar-acid ratio (
P < 0.05). The comprehensive evaluation by using fuzzy membership function and coefficient of variation weighting method showed that the comprehensive evaluation values of fruit quality are ranked in descending order as follows: RB+FR, RB+G, RB+R, RB, RB+UVA, RB+B, and CK. In summary, LED assisted lighting improved the yield and quality of tomatoes in greenhouse under low light conditions. Specifically, RB+R treatment had the highest yield and medium quality, while RB+FR treatment had the best quality and medium yield. Therefore, the RB+FR treatment is more suitable for production prioritizing quality, whereas the RB+R treatment is better for yield-oriented production.