Poorter Hendrik, B Hler Jonas, van Dusschoten Dagmar, Climent Jos, Postma Johannes A
IBG-2 Plant Sciences, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52425, Germany.
INIA, Forest Research Centre, Department of Forest Ecology and Genetics, Avda A Coruña Km 7.5., 28040 Madrid, Spain.
Funct Plant Biol. 2012 Nov;39(11):839-850. doi: 10.1071/FP12049.
The majority of experiments in plant biology use plants grown in some kind of container or pot. We conducted a meta-analysis on 65 studies that analysed the effect of pot size on growth and underlying variables. On average, a doubling of the pot size increased biomass production by 43%. Further analysis of pot size effects on the underlying components of growth suggests that reduced growth in smaller pots is caused mainly by a reduction in photosynthesis per unit leaf area, rather than by changes in leaf morphology or biomass allocation. The appropriate pot size will logically depend on the size of the plants growing in them. Based on various lines of evidence we suggest that an appropriate pot size is one in which the plant biomass does not exceed 1gL-1. In current research practice ~65% of the experiments exceed that threshold. We suggest that researchers need to carefully consider the pot size in their experiments, as small pots may change experimental results and defy the purpose of the experiment.
植物生物学中的大多数实验都使用种植在某种容器或花盆中的植物。我们对65项研究进行了荟萃分析，这些研究分析了花盆大小对生长及相关变量的影响。平均而言，花盆大小翻倍会使生物量产量提高43%。对花盆大小对生长的潜在组成部分的影响进行的进一步分析表明，较小花盆中生长的减少主要是由于单位叶面积光合作用的降低，而不是叶片形态或生物量分配的变化。合适的花盆大小在逻辑上取决于种植在其中的植物的大小。基于各种证据，我们建议合适的花盆大小是植物生物量不超过1gL-1的那种。在当前的研究实践中，约65%的实验超过了该阈值。我们建议研究人员在实验中需要仔细考虑花盆大小，因为小花盆可能会改变实验结果并违背实验目的。
