RELATIVE GROWTH RATE AS AN INDEX FOR EVALUATING ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS ON VEGETABLE SEEDLING GROWTH

The authors have found out a comparative analysis of relative growth rate (RGR) useful to evaluate environmental effects on vegetable seedling growth. This analysis is based on growth data measured from two or more different treatments sequentially and their comparison on full logarithmic axes. Since the slope of a logarithmic plot of time series growth data gives RGR, the difference in the RGR among several treatments is simply obtained from the slope of their comparative plots. By using this technique, the importance of the management in young seedling stage was successfully evaluated.