FIGURE 7.

The relationship between carbon availability and fruit growth is conditional on atmospheric water stress in clementine. Fruit growth was monitored using displacement transducers on at least three fruits per level of leaf-to-fruit ratio during 45 days between early September and late November. Some displacement transducers were also placed on peeled fruits from girdled fruiting branches with 30 leaves. Climate data (air humidity, temperature and irradiance) were collected every 15 min together with changes in fruit diameter. A k-means clustering was performed to group days of the experiment on the basis of their similarity in VPD. Three clusters were statistically obtained, equivalent to days with a dry (top), intermediate (middle), and wet (bottom) atmosphere. Irradiance as well as fruit growth was then averaged according to these three clusters. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals.