Abstract
Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are an energy efficient alternative to high-pressure sodium (HPS) lighting in tomato cultivation. In the past years, we have learned a lot about the effect of red and blue LEDs on plant growth and yield of tomatoes. From previous studies, we know that plants absorb and utilize most of the visible spectrum for photosynthesis. This part of the spectrum is referred to as the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). We designed a LED fixture with an emission spectrum that partially matches the range of 400 to 700 nm and thus partially covers the absorption spectrum of photosynthetic pigments in tomato leaves. Tomato plants grown under this fixture were significantly taller and produced a higher fruit yield (14%) than plants grown under HPS lighting. There was no difference in the number of leaves and trusses, leaf area, stem diameter, the electron transport rate, and the normalized difference vegetation index. Lycopene and lutein contents in tomatoes were 18% and 142% higher when they were exposed to the LED fixture. However, the ß-carotene content was not different between the light treatments. Transpiration rate under LED was significantly lower (40%), while the light use efficiency (LUE) was significantly higher (19%) compared to HPS lighting. These data show that an LED fixture with an emission spectrum covering the entire PAR range can improve LUE, yields, and content of secondary metabolites in tomatoes compared to HPS lighting.
Highlights
Tomato is one of the most important greenhouse crops in the world
As plants grew toward the supplementary lighting, leaf temperatures increased from 19.9◦C to 21.7◦C under Light emitting diodes (LEDs) lighting and from 20.7◦C to 23.2◦C under high-pressure sodium (HPS) lighting (Table 2)
We provide evidence that LED lighting with an emission spectrum that partially matches the range of 400 to 700 nm can accelerate plant growth and increase the yield of
Summary
Tomato is one of the most important greenhouse crops in the world. They are an important dietary source of carotenoids, a class of compounds that may have beneficial effects on human health, e.g., the reduction in the occurrence of inflammations and human prostate cancer (Kotake-Nara et al, 2001; Jacob et al, 2008). There is a lot of information about the effect of red and blue light used as overhead-lighting, interlighting or hybrid-lighting (LEDs + HPS) on plant growth and yield of tomatoes (Dueck et al, 2011; Hogewoning et al, 2012; Gajc-Wolska et al, 2013; Gomez et al, 2013; Deram et al, 2014; Gómez and Mitchell, 2015; Tewolde et al, 2016; Gilli et al, 2018; Lanoue et al, 2019; Paponov et al, 2019) These studies showed that photosynthesis under a combination of red and blue light tends to be higher than under HPS lighting, but fruit yield is equal. This fixture was used to grow tomato plants in a greenhouse and compare the morphological and -physiological responses to plants grown under HPS lighting
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