Phytochrome, plant growth and flowering
Attempts to use artificially lit cabinets to grow plants identical to those growing in sunlight have provided compelling evidence of the importance of light quality for plant growth. Changing the balance of red (R) to far-red (FR) radiation, but with a fixed photosynthetic input can shift the phytochrome photoequilibrium in a plant and generate large differences in plant growth. With FR enrichment the plants elongate, and may produce more leaf area and dry matter. Similar morphogenic responses are also obtained when light quality is altered only briefly (15-30 min) at the end-of-the-day. Conversely, for plants grown in natural conditions the response of plant form to selective spectral filtering has again shown that red and far-red wavebands are important as found by Kasperbauer and coworkers. Also, where photosynthetic photon flux densities (PPFD) of sunlight have been held constant, the removal of far-red alone alters plant growth. With FR depletion plants grown in sunlight are small, more branched and darker green. Here we examine the implications for plant growth and flowering when the far-red composition of incident radiation in plant growth chambers is manipulated.