ENVIRONMENTAL-CONTROL OF PLANT-GROWTH IN THE MARTONVASAR PHYTOTRON

The fifty or so climatic plant growth and testing units in the phytotr on opened in the Agricultural Research Institute of the Hungarian Acad emy of Sciences in 1972 provided the technical conditions required for exact plant research in Martonvasar. In the high quality phytotron un its, manufactured by the Canadian company Controlled Environments Ltd. (Conviron) the climate of any part of the world where vegetation exis ts can be simulated in reproducible programmes, with temperatures rang ing from -25 degrees C to +45 degrees C. The climatic programmes emplo yed in the;phytotron units are fundamentally determined by the researc h aims and strategy. However, when elaborating climatic programmes the technical parameters of the phytotron units must also be taken into c onsideration. In general the programmes simulate natural weather condi tions, though special simplified programmes which do not reflect natur e also exist. During the 25 years since the Martonvasar phytotron went into operation a large number of climatic programmes have been elabor ated and utilised. The data presented here include the TI; T3 and t2 p rogrammes, which simulate spring weather, and the Ny3 programme used t o create Summer conditions: Programmes M29, FDA and FDAS are based on autumn weather data and are used when testing the frost resistance of cereals. Special programmes have been elaborated for the raising of ma ize plants (Szk and Trk).