Effect of light environment controlled by red and blue LEDs on the growth of Lactuca genetic resources

T.M. Le*, M. Shigyo, Y. Tatemichi, K. Harada, K. Arai, Y. Ishizaki, H. Aoki, C. Kik, R. van Treuren, T. van Hintum

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Previous studies have reported that LED light irradiation is able to enhance the growth of lettuce plants cultivated in fully closed plant factories. As the cost of equipment is very high, there is high demand to achieve the benefits of improved productivity and nutrient value of plants by effectively combining cultivars and light conditions. In this study, 19 lettuce SSD lines introduced from Centre for Genetic Resources, the Netherlands of Wageningen University & Research were selected for investigating the growth rate and amino acid content under different LED light treatments. Ten days after sowing, lettuce seedlings were grown hydroponically (solution: Otsuka SA formula; EC: 2.0 ds m-1; pH: 5.5 to 6.5) in the first plant factory of Yamaguchi University at a room temperature of 20°C, a humidity of 70 to 80%, and a CO2 concentration of 1,200 ppmv. While fluorescent light (FL) was used as the control treatment, three red:blue ratios – including 3:1 (RB31), 1:1 (RB11), and 1:3 (RB13) – were adopted for LED light irradiation. All treatments were set at 12-h day lengths with the light intensity equaling 160 µmol m-2 s-1. Lettuce plants were harvested 26 days after sowing. The results suggested that the growth rate of the plants was significantly impacted by the genotype of the SSD lines, whose effect explained 63.94% of the variation by ANOVA. It was also shown that the carbon assimilation capacity of each line was increased by a specific red:blue LED light ratio. Besides, the amino acid content had an inverse ratio with the fresh weight in most observations. On the other hand, some combinations, such as line TKI466-RB13, were shown to increase both the growth rate and the amount of amino acid, revealing the potential to break through the tradeoff relationship between productivity and quality using appropriate LED irradiation.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)317-322
Number of pages6
JournalActa Horticulturae
Volume3
Issue number1404
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2024

Keywords

  • amino acid
  • lettuce
  • light condition
  • plant factory
  • plant growth

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