Marcello Salvatore Lenucci

Climate change, with rising temperatures, water crises, and an increased frequency of climate disturbances, poses a threat to the ability of agroecosystems to ensure human access to food by affecting both the quantity and quality of crop production. Currently, there is growing knowledge about the fact that agrivoltaic systems may represent a direct strategy to cope with climate change driven by carbon dioxide emissions for energy production, preserving the capacity of agroecosystems to maintain food security. The aim of this work was to investigate the impact of environmental conditions generated by photovoltaic (PV) panels for sustaining open-field tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) fruit production under varying water supply regimes. Tomato plants were grown beneath PV panels or in full sunlight. In each scenario, two plots with an equal number of plants were subjected to different irrigation levels: high watering (HW) and low watering (LW). The results showed a lower number of tomato fruit produced grown under the PV panels, with an increased fruit size and water content under a normal water supply. The Brix degrees of the tomato fruits grown under the panel were more comparable to the fruits commercially available on the market than the Brix degree of the fruits grown in open-field sunlight. Thus, our data supported the conclusion that the agrivoltaic system, in the context of climate change with the enduring drought and long-term water scarcity, can be a good adaptation strategy to maintain favorable tomato production compared to the full sunlight conditions. Furthermore, these results can be important for planning breeding programs, since in many cases, the tomato fruits grown in full sunlight were seedless.

Growing conditions and seasonal fluctuations are critical factors affecting fruit and vegetable nutritional quality. The effects of two partially overlapping cropping seasons, early (ECS; January–May) and full (FCS; March–July), on the main carpometric traits and bioactive components of different watermelon fruits were investigated in the open field. Four watermelon genotypes, comprising of three commercial cultivars ‘Crimson Sweet’, ‘Dumara’, ‘Giza’, and the novel hybrid ‘P503 F1’, were compared. The carpometric traits varied significantly between genotypes. Soluble solids and yield were higher under FCS than ECS. The variation affecting colour indexes between the two growing seasons exhibited a genotype-dependent trend. The antioxidant components and radical scavenging activity of watermelon fruits were also significantly affected by differences in received solar energy and temperature fluctuations during the trial period. The average citrulline, total phenolics and flavonoid contents were 93%, 71% and 40% higher in FCS than in ECS. A genotype-dependent variation trend was also observed for lycopene and total vitamin C between cropping seasons. The hydrophilic and lipophilic radical scavenging activities of the pulp of ripe watermelon fruits of the different genotypes investigated varied between 243.16 and 425.31 µmol Trolox Equivalent (TE) of 100 g−1 of fresh weight (fw) and from 232.71 to 341.67 µmol TE of 100 g−1 fw in FCS and ECS, respectively. Our results, although preliminary, show that the functional quality of watermelon fruits is drastically altered depending on the environmental conditions that characterize the ECS and LCS.