Green Light: Is it useful?

Hi guys!

I happened to be reading a research paper (you know, as you do), and beyond all the very technical details, I noticed something interesting:

[quote]In contrast to the significant effect of blue light on dry mass and leaf area, increasing
green light fraction from zero to 30 % resulted in few significant differences on DM, LAI or net
assimilation, and there was no consistent direction among species or PPF levels. Increasing GL
increased stem and petiole length in several species, which is consistent with a shade avoidance
response. These results indicate that GL had little effect on dry mass, but its importance may
increase over time as a dense canopy forms.
[/quote]

GL stands for Green Light, BTW.

So while green light doesn’t seem to have an observable effect on dry leaf mass, it seems to stimulate plants into becoming less bushy, and more spread out. This would make a lot of intuitive sense when you think about it – if a plant is sitting in a lot of green light, chances are that it’s in the shade of another plant. What else should the plant do but try to increase its stem and petiole lengths in order to reach some of that other light it craves?

Let me know what you think.

Oh, and here’s the paper I’m referring to:

Sensitivity of Seven Diverse Species to Blue and Green Light- In.pdf (1.2 MB)

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GREEN LIGHT684.full.pdf (900.2 KB)

measure the spectrum of the light when you are in a forest in the shade. There are peaks in green and far red. Far red is also known to cause shade avoidance.

Then again, the highest intensity light from the sun is… green! Would be really strange if nature would not use it. In high intensity white light, green seems to be more efficient that red and blue light.

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In addition to Terashima on Green I suggest looking into the role of anthocyanins and anthocyani

Anthocyanin and anthocyaninid ab sorptanceds.