, 1996). Accumulated thermal time is measured in day-degrees

(DD). It is calculated UMI-77 purchase by adding the values for daily mean temperature. This concept is widely used in horticultural crop production to predict harvest dates and decide when to sow and plant. Based on previous experiments (data not shown), we set a target value of 400 DD (starting on the day of transfer into growth chamber) to obtain marketable lettuce heads of 200–250 g at the end of this experiment. Most crops have a “base temperature” below which no growth occurs. Based on previous experiments, we assumed a base temperature of 2 °C which is subtracted from the daily mean temperature in the calculations. The warm treatment reached the set day-degrees 26 days after planting (406 DD), the cool treatment 52 days after planting (395 DD). Some plants were exchanged after they reached half of the day-degrees (203 and 198 DD, after 13 and 26 days in the warm and cool treatment, respectively) and harvested after 39 days. On day 13 and 26 after planting, some Selleck NLG919 plants were harvested from the warm and the cool treatment. Thus, at the end we had information about lettuce plants from the following six conditions and stages: small

heads grown warm or cool (ca. 200 DD), as well as mature heads cultivated warm, cool, first cool then warm and first warm then cool (ca. 400 DD; see harvest schedule, Fig. 1). For all samples, only above ground organs (lettuce heads) were harvested. At all harvest dates, three heads per cultivar, O-methylated flavonoid treatment, and replicate were weighed to obtain the mean head mass. Values for head mass are given in gram fresh matter (FM). To obtain dry matter content, weight before and after lyophilization was compared. Values for dry matter content are given as milligram dry matter per gram fresh matter. A mixed sample from six heads was prepared for each cultivar, treatment, and replicate only limp or deteriorated outer leaves were removed. Within 30 min after harvesting, the

plants were cut in smaller pieces, mixed and frozen at -20 °C until lyophilized (Christ Beta 1-16, Osterode, Germany) and ground with an ultracentrifuge mill (hole size: 0.25 mm; ZM 200, Retsch, Haan, Germany). The well-established HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS method for the determination of flavonol glycosides and phenolic acids in kale, reported by (Neugart et al., 2012) was optimized for lettuce. Best results were obtained by extracting 0.5 g of lyophilized, pulverized lettuce powder with 25 ml of aqueous methanol (50% MeOH) at room temperature. The suspension was kept in motion with a magnetic stirrer for 1.5 h and then centrifuged (Labofuge 400R, Heraeus Instruments, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, USA) for 15 min at 4500 rcf (relative centrifugal force). The supernatant was filtered with PTFE-syringe filters (0.25 μm, polytetrafluoroethylene; Roth, Karlsruhe, Germany) transferred to a glass vial and analyzed via HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS3.