Ask Me Anything with Dr. Emil Radkov from VividGro

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Each light-mediated plant response has what is called “action spectrum” showing that response as function of the light wavelength. Phototropism is no exception, even though the phototropic response is more complicated than most (it has different behaviors at low and at high light levels). For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll consider only the low light level phototropic response which has been studied since the 19th century. The reference http://biology.mcgill.ca/Phytotron/LightWkshp1994/3.3%20Hashimoto/Hashimoto%20text.htm shows a couple of such spectra in Fig. 1 (you might also want to Google “phototropism action spectrum” for more examples). Regardless of some subtle differences, those action spectra look essentially the same and have a global maximum in the blue spectral region around 450 nm, with very little phototropic action above 500 nm (dropping to zero by 510 nm). This means that 520 nm green light is completely ineffective when it comes to phototropism.

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Water vapor absorbs some light, especially in the infrared region above 1000 nm. That is a problem for astronomers who need to peer through the entire atmosphere surrounding Earth, and they have to make certain spectral corrections to their readings. For horticultural artificial lighting applications (where the air thickness is less than 10 feet) water vapor absorption is negligible at any atmospheric moisture level, and no correction is needed. When it comes to sunlight, the time of day and coverage by clouds affect its level and spectrum much more than air humidity does.

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Thanks so much for taking the time to answer these two questions Dr. Radkov. Really appreciate the thoughts and the link too.

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