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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Photosynthesis and Photobiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1465004
This article is part of the Research Topic Enhancement of Photosynthesis through Light Utilization in Plants and Crops View all 8 articles

Reducing red light proportion in full-spectrum LEDs enhances runner plant propagation by promoting the growth and development of mother plants in strawberry

Provisionally accepted
Jian Chen Jian Chen Fang Ji Fang Ji *Rongwei Gao Rongwei Gao *Dongxian He Dongxian He *
  • China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Full-spectrum light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have gradually replaced narrow-spectrum LEDs and are widely used in plant factories with artificial lightings (PFALs). However, the specific effect of LED light quality on dry mass allocation in runner plant propagation remains unclear. Hence, we cultivated 'Akihime' strawberries as mother plants for 115 days to conduct runner plant propagation experiment under white LEDs (W100), white and red LEDs (W84R16 and W55R45), red and blue LEDs (RB100), and red, blue and green LEDs (RB80G20) in PFALs, and determined key factors affecting dry mass accumulation and allocation among mother plants and runner plants based on growth component analysis. The results showed that the net photosynthetic rate and total leaf area in mother plants in W100 increased by 11% and 31%, respectively, compared with W55R45. In comparison to W84R16 and W55R45, W100 increased the dry mass (23%-30%) of runner plants mainly by increasing the total dry mass (23%) of strawberry plants, without significantly affecting the fraction of dry mass partitioning to runner plants. However, the number of runners in W55R45 was 5.1 per plant, representing only 78% of that in W100. Compared with RB100, RB80G20 significantly increased the number of runner plants and runner numbers by 16% and 19% to 13.0 per plant and 5.8 per plant, respectively. The partial replacement of blue light with green light in RB80G20 induced a shade avoidance response in runner plants, resulting in a 55% increase in total leaf area of runner plants compared with RB100. Data from growth component analysis showed that compared with red and blue LEDs, white LEDs increased the total dry mass of runner plants by 83% by increasing the plant total dry mass accumulation (44%) and the fraction of dry mass partitioning to runner plants (37%). Additionally, the dry mass (g) of runner plants per mol and per kWh under in W100 were 0.11 and 0.75, respectively, significantly higher than other treatments. Therefore, reducing red light proportion in full-spectrum LEDs is beneficial for strawberry runner plant propagation in PFALs.

    Keywords: strawberry, LED light quality, Runner plant propagation, Dry mass partitioning, Photon yield

    Received: 15 Jul 2024; Accepted: 13 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chen, Ji, Gao and He. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Fang Ji, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
    Rongwei Gao, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
    Dongxian He, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.