A Fiberoptic-based System for Integrating Photosynthetically Active Radiation in Plant Canopies

Abstract

This report describes a system for integrating photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) using fiberoptics. Many photoelectric sensors or 1-m-long line sensors that integrate individual interception points for spatial averaging were replaced with fiberoptics, which integrate interception points. Depending on the positioning of optical fibers and the amount of fibers terminated at a PAR sensor, whole-plant, canopy layer, and individual leaf light interception can be determined. The use of fiberoptics has the added advantage of being very small in comparison to the bulk of a typical quantum sensor. The fiberoptic-based system potentially is a more accurate, less expensive method to integrate PAR throughout plant canopies than PAR sensors.