Diurnal variations in leaf – Air temperature and vapor pressure deficit of sunlit and shaded kenaf leaves

Abstract

The microclimatic conditions within a crop canopy are differentiated from those outside resulting to the exposure of plant organs in different environmental conditions. In the present study, the diurnal variation of leaf temperature, air temperature and vapor pressure deficit (VPDis presented, of leaves inside (shaded) and outside (sunlit) a kenaf canopy, for a period of two days is presented. During the solar day, the VPD inside and outside the canopy showed no differences and maximized at 2.7 kPa. Inside the canopy air temperature showed statistically significant differences from the outside temperature the period from 6 am to 10 am and the leaf - air temperature comparison of sunlit leaves showed significant differences during 6 pm - 11 pm, while the leaf - air temperature comparison of shaded leaves showed significant differences, almost constantly, throughout the day. Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).