Photosynthetic apparatus performance of tomato seedlings grown under various combinations of LED illumination

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 4; p. e0249373
• Main Authors: Yousef, Ahmed F, Ali, Muhammad M, Rizwan, Hafiz M, Tadda, Shehu Abubakar, Kalaji, Hazem M, Yang, Hao, Ahmed, Mohamed A A, Wróbel, Jacek, Xu, Yong, Chen, Faxing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 15-04-2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Agricultural engineering; Agricultural production; Agriculture; Bioengineering; Biology and Life Sciences; Chlorophyll; Chlorophyll A - analysis; Editing; Efficiency; Electronic engineering; Electronic mail; Environmental aspects; Fluorescence; Forestry; Growth; Horticulture; Humidity; Learning algorithms; Light; Light emitting diodes; Luminous intensity; Machine learning; Medicinal plants; Morphogenesis; Nutrient status; Photosynthesis; Photosynthesis - radiation effects; Photosynthetic apparatus; Photosystem II Protein Complex - metabolism; Physical Sciences; Physiology; Plant breeding; Plant physiology; Plant production; Plant species; Quality assessment; Seedlings; Seedlings - growth & development; Seedlings - radiation effects; Solanum lycopersicum - growth & development; Solanum lycopersicum - metabolism; Solanum lycopersicum - radiation effects; Spectrometry, Fluorescence; Stress response; Technology; Temperature; Tomatoes; China; Poland
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249373

It is already known that the process of photosynthesis depends on the quality and intensity of light. However, the influence of the new light sources recently used in horticulture, known as Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), on this process is not yet fully understood. Chlorophyll a fluorescence measurement has been widely used as a rapid, reliable, and noninvasive tool to study the efficiency of the photosystem II (PSII) and to evaluate plant responses to various environmental factors, including light intensity and quality. In this work, we tested the responses of the tomato photosynthetic apparatus to different light spectral qualities. Our results showed that the best performance of the photosynthetic apparatus was observed under a mixture of red and blue light (R7:B3) or a mixture of red, green and blue light (R3:G2:B5). This was demonstrated by the increase in the effective photochemical quantum yield of PSII (Y[II]), photochemical quenching (qP) and electron transport rate (ETR). On the other hand, the mixture of red and blue light with a high proportion of blue light led to an increase in non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). Our results can be used to improve the production of tomato plants under artificial light conditions. However, since we found that the responses of the photosynthetic apparatus of tomato plants to a particular light regime were cultivar-dependent and there was a weak correlation between the growth and photosynthetic parameters tested in this work, special attention should be paid in future research.