What is Crop physiology?
Crop physiology is the study of the plant processes responsible for the growth, development, and production of economic yield by crop plants. Crop physiologists focus on whole plants and plant communities – not individual plant parts, organs, or cells because most of the processes that control yield operate at the whole plant – plant community level. Consequently most crop physiology research is conducted in growth chambers, greenhouses, or in the field. Crop physiologists investigate processes responsible for the primary productivity of crop communities (e.g., photosynthesis, respiration, light interception, nutrient utilization), how the products of these processes are converted to economic yield (e.g., sink size, seed growth, partitioning, senescence), and developmental processes that define the length of critical growth stages by controlling flowering and maturation. Crop physiology is an integrative science, bringing information from a variety of disciplines (soil science, ecology
