Light condition is a fundamental environmental factor for high-quality plant production. In this paper, we discuss how light condition affects fruit development in the long and short term, and attempt to clarify management methods for active fruit development under conditions of low solar radiation, by using quantitative research on fruit water and carbon balance during greenhouse cultivation of Satsuma mandarin (Citrus unshiu Marc.). A significant decrease in yield due to shading was not detected, but we confirmed that shading treatment affected the dry weights of source-sink units, fruit volume, increase in volume of the fruits, and fruit quality parameters, such as sugar accumulation, acid content, and rind color. Qualitatively, the carbon balance of Satsuma mandarin fruit is comparable to that of tomato fruit or rice panicle, but quantitatively, the carbon balance of Satsuma mandarin fruit may differ, as shown by low sink relative growth rate. In addition, fruit growth parameters such as translocation rate for a fruit and fruit relative growth rate showed significant positive correlations with dark respiration, despite the shading treatment. The fruit carbon demand may be simply described by fruit dark respiration as the sum of new photosynthetic carbon and stored carbon translocation for a fruit.
