Red And Blue Light For Plants

The effect of blue light on plants is directly related to chlorophyll production.

Red and blue light for plants.

Therefore red is very efficient at producing fast growing tall and strong plants and indeed produces some of the most impressive growth rates of height and stem width in plants. In contrast blue light is considered equally effective as green or red light at driving photosynthesis. Red and blue wavelengths. The arizona master gardener manual which was produced by the cooperative extension of the university of arizona s college of agriculture discusses some of the effects.

The amount of blue red and far red spectrum of light that reaches the planet changes with the seasons. Blue light is helpful for growing leaves on plants. Red light when mixed with blue can assist with the flowering portion of a plant s growth. Blue promotes root development and strong stocky plant growth.

Plants that receive plenty of blue light will have strong healthy stems and leaves. Therefore plants grown indoors with 80 to 90 percent red light and 10 to 20 percent blue light are quite compact with smaller leaves and shorter stems. If a plant receives some sunlight a gardener can manipulate it by adding appropriate blue and red spectrum light to encourage healthy growth and fruiting and flowering. Red light is ideal to maintain healthy mature plants.

Red light is special in that it can deliver high growth to a plant but without the limiting effect of blue that obscures the chloroplast to protect it from high blue midday sun. Red light induces higher but softer growth and stimulates fuller leaf growth. Thus while blue light can appear somewhat dim to us it has high energy and is useful for plant growth applications. As days start to get longer more blue spectrum light reaches the surface of the earth.

A higher intensity of red promotes a higher yield. Red light is responsible for making plants flower and produce fruit. When you blast your young plants with blue you prepare them to sustain a ton of buds in the future. Blue light also affects flower and fruit preparation and production but blue light alone produces short plants of a dark color.

Red light on the other hand does its best work in the flowering phase. It s also essential to a plant s early life for seed germination root growth and bulb development. Our perception of blue light especially at shorter wavelengths for example 400 to 425 nm is low compared to green. Plants use the blue spectrum to stimulate early growth.