Research Article

Phase Characterization of Cucumber Growth: A Chemical Gel Model

Figure 2

The growth of a cucumber is analogous to the process of swelling in a tubular gel. Subjected to the chemical potential, the dry polymer network imbibes solvent molecules, forming a swollen gel. The sketched model characterizes the shape change of cucumber during growth, with the dimension enlarging from (a) at the initial state to (b) at the harvested state.