Daniel Bånkestad

The most suitable light intensity for cows during nighttime has not been thoroughly investigated. Recommendations on the night-time lighting regimen on dairy farms differ between countries and range from light throughout the night to darkness to allow the animals a rest from artificial light. Commercial actors recommend red light for night-time lighting in cattle barns to facilitate livestock supervision with minimum disturbance for the animals. However, little is known about how light intensity, spectrum, and uniformity affect the ability of cows to navigate their indoor environment. Thus, in a change-over study with 12 pregnant, nonlactating dairy cows, we observed how the cows walked through an obstacle course under different light treatments. Obstacles were positioned differently for every run, to present a novel challenge for each light environment. Fourteen different light treatments were tested, involving intensity ranging from -2 s^-1, high or low uniformity, and white or red color. Light was characterized in terms of illuminance, photon flux density, spectral composition, and uniformity. Additionally, assessment of the environmental light field was used to describe each lighting condition from a bovine and human perspective. Data were analyzed in a generalized mixed model to assess whether lighting conditions affected cow walking speed or stride rate. Pair-wise post hoc comparisons showed that the cows walked at a slower speed in nonuniform red light compared with uniform white light or uniform red light. Interestingly, darkness did not alter walking speed or stride rate. The odds of different behaviors occurring were not affected by lighting conditions. In conclusion, darkness did not affect the ability of cows to navigate through the obstacle course, but medium-intensity, nonuniform red light affected their speed. Hence, cows do not necessarily need night-time lighting to navigate, even in a test arena with obstacles blocking their way, but nonuniform light distribution may have an effect on their movements.

Chlorophyll fluorescence is interesting for phenotyping applications as it is rich in biological information and can be measured remotely and non-destructively. There are several techniques for measuring and analysing this signal. However, the standard methods use rather extreme conditions, e.g., saturating light and dark adaption, which are difficult to accommodate in the field or in a greenhouse and, hence, limit their use for high-throughput phenotyping. In this article, we use a different approach, extracting plant health information from the dynamics of the chlorophyll fluorescence induced by a weak light excitation and no dark adaption, to classify plants as healthy or unhealthy. To evaluate the method, we scanned over a number of species (lettuce, lemon balm, tomato, basil, and strawberries) exposed to either abiotic stress (drought and salt) or biotic stress factors (root infection using Pythium ultimum and leaf infection using Powdery mildew Podosphaera aphanis). Our conclusions are that, for abiotic stress, the proposed method was very successful, while, for powdery mildew, a method with spatial resolution would be desirable due to the nature of the infection, i.e., point-wise spread. Pythium infection on the roots is not visually detectable in the same way as powdery mildew; however, it affects the whole plant, making the method an interesting option for Pythium detection. However, further research is necessary to determine the limit of infection needed to detect the stress with the proposed method.

Several studies have recommended the incorporation of environmental fluctuations in indoor experiments if closer-to-natural results in plant experiments are desired. Previous authors have suggested that if these fluctuations are not applied in synchrony, a stress effect could be present since plants have evolved to cope with synchronic environmental fluctuations. This study aimed to identify the effect of disparity in fluctuations of two important environmental variables, light quantity and temperature, on the growth of seven plant species from different functional plant types. A full-factorial combination of light and temperature under fixed or variable conditions was applied in phytotrons, and plant performance under these conditions was compared with a previous field trial. In all phytotron treatments, the average light and temperature conditions were the same as in the initial field trial. Productivity, leaf gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence, pigmentation, and other leaf traits were recorded in all species at the end of the experiments. Most plant trait responses were highly dependent on species and treatment, but some general trends were observed. Light fluctuations were mainly responsible for increases in specific leaf area (SLA) and chlorophyll a concentration, as well as for reductions in total dry weight and chlorophyll a/b ratio, independent if in combination with fluctuation or fixed temperatures. When fixed light conditions were combined with variable temperatures, the plants showed on average lower F_v/F_m values, A_max, and CO₂ yield, while under variable light conditions and fixed temperatures, F_v/F_m increased compared with fully fixed or variable conditions. Although significant differences of plant traits between the field trial and all phytotron treatments were present (likely due to differences in other parameters that were not controlled in the phytotrons), our results still suggest that a synchronous variation of environmental factors lead to a more natural-like plant growth than if these factors are fixed or vary asynchronously.

Recommendations for near-natural plant growth under indoor conditions have been described without considering environmental fluctuations, which might have important consequences for researchers and plant producers when comparing results from indoor facilities with natural ecosystems or production. Previous authors proposed that differences in temperature, light quantity, and the lack of their variation are sources of deviations between indoor and outdoor experiments. Here, we investigated the effect of fluctuating light, temperature, and humidity in an indoor environment on plant performance. Seven plant species from different functional plant types were grown outdoors during summer and spring. The same species were then grown in indoor growth chambers under different scenarios of climate complexity in terms of fluctuations of temperature, air humidity, and light: (1) fixed night and day conditions, (2) daily sinusoidal changes, and (3) variable conditions tracking the climate records from the field trials. In each scenario, the average of the environmental variables was the same as in the respective field trial. Productivity-, gas exchange-, and leaf pigment-traits were measured in all plants at the end of the experiments. The plant trait responses were highly dependent on species and treatment, but general trends were observed. The variable condition yielded lower biomass compared to the fixed and sinusoidal conditions, together with a higher specific leaf area and increased chlorophyll concentrations. A principal component analysis (PCA) across all plant traits in response to climatic conditions suggested that at least a sinusoidal fluctuation is recommended for a more natural-like plant performance in indoor growth facilities. However, prevailing significant differences for several traits between field- and indoor-grown plants even under variable climates indicate that additional factors other than those controllable in standard phytotrons (e.g., wind speed and direction, leaf and soil temperature) can still significantly bias plant performance in indoor facilities.

To transfer experimental findings in plant research to natural ecosystems it is imperative to reach near to natural-like plant performance. Previous studies propose differences in temperature and light quantity as main sources of deviations between indoor and outdoor plant growth. With increasing implementation of light emitting diodes (LED) in plant growth facilities, light quality is yet another factor that can be optimised to prevent unnatural plant performance. We investigated the effects of different wavelength combinations in phytotrons (i.e., indoor growth chambers) on plant growth and physiology in seven different plant species from different plant functional types (herbs, grasses and trees). The results from these experiments were compared against a previous field trial with the same set of species. While different proportions of blue (B) and red (R) light were applied in the phytotrons, the mean environmental conditions (photoperiod, total radiation, red to far red ratio and day/night temperature and air humidity) from the field trial were used in the phytotrons in order to assess which wavelength combinations result in the most natural-like plant performance. Different plant traits and physiological parameters, including biomass productivity, specific leaf area (SLA), leaf pigmentation, photosynthesis under a standardised light, and the respective growing light and chlorophyll fluorescence, were measured at the end of each treatment. The exposure to different B percentages induced species-specific dose response reactions for most of the analysed parameters. Compared with intermediate B light treatments (25 and/or 35% B light), extreme R or B light enriched treatments (6% and 62% of B respectively) significantly affected the height, biomass, biomass allocation, chlorophyll content, and photosynthesis parameters, differently among species. Principal component analyses (PCA) confirmed that 6% and 62% B light quality combinations induce more extreme plant performance in most cases, indicating that light quality needs to be adjusted to mitigate unnatural plant responses under indoor conditions.

Natural changes in photoperiod, light quantity, and quality play a key role in plant signaling, enabling daily and seasonal adjustment of growth and development. Growing concern about the global climate crisis together with scattered reports about the interactive effects of temperature and light parameters on plants necessitates more detailed information about these effects. Furthermore, the actual light emitting diode (LED) lighting technology allows mimicking of light climate scenarios more similar to natural conditions, but to fully exploit this in plant cultivation, easy-to-apply knowledge about the natural variation in light quantity and spectral distribution is required. Here, we aimed to provide detailed information about short and long-term variation in the natural light climate, by recording the light quantity and quality at an open site in Switzerland every minute for a whole year, and to analyze its relationship to a set of previous tree seedling growth experiments. Changes in the spectral composition as a function of solar elevation angle and weather conditions were analyzed. At a solar elevation angle lower than 20°, the weather conditions have a significant effect on the proportions of blue (B) and red (R) light, whereas the proportion of green (G) light is almost constant. At a low solar elevation, the red to far red (R:FR) ratio fluctuates between 0.8 in cloudy conditions and 1.3 on sunny days. As the duration of periods with low solar angles increases with increasing latitude, an analysis of previous experiments on tree seedlings shows that the effect of the R:FR ratio correlates with the responses of plants from different latitudes to light quality. We suggest an evolutionary adaptation where growth in seedlings of selected tree species from high latitudes is more dependent on detection of light quantity of specific light qualities than in such seedlings originating from lower latitudes.