FUNDAMENTAL STUDIES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW FLUORESCENT LAMPS FOR PLANT GROWTH

K. Murakami, K. Horaguchi, M. Morita, H. Shibata, I. Aiga
Two methods of evaluating artificial lighting sources, photosynthetic photon flux efficacy and red/far-red (R/FR) photon flux ratio are proposed, and trial fluorescent lamps for plant growth were manufactured based on those methods.

Before designing these lamps, experiments on FR fluorescent lamps mixed with 3-band fluorescent lamps were performed. Compared with use of only 3-band fluorescent lamps (R/FR=6 to 9), FR added experiments (R/FR<2) are effective in increasing the growth of sunflower, lettuce, smartweed and tomato plants even when the PPFD is equal. It was thus found that the most important point in designing the trial lamps was the R/FR ratios. The ratios were set at about 1.5, 1.0, 0.5.

These three types of trial lamps were all effective in increasing plant growth in the lettuce experiments and stem length was controlled depending on the R/FR in the sunflower experiments. In plant factories or in atria, desirable plant growth can probably obtained by the use of these trial lamps.

Murakami, K., Horaguchi, K., Morita, M., Shibata, H. and Aiga, I. (1992). FUNDAMENTAL STUDIES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW FLUORESCENT LAMPS FOR PLANT GROWTH. Acta Hortic. 319, 329-334
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.1992.319.51
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1992.319.51

Acta Horticulturae