The Significance of Light for Plant Growth and Development

Categories: LightPhysicsScience

Background of the Study

Light is essential for a plant to grow, without light plant could not reproduce or produce food and building materials. So all plants would eventually die off if there is no light to use and unfortunately as humans we will also be affected and it will also lead us to death. So light can also be described as life. When you look out on a sunny day, the light appears colorless. In fact, that light contains all of the colors of the light spectrum, from red to violet.

Although light color matters little to people aside from aesthetic preference, plants utilize the different colors found in visible light to control different aspects of their growth. Light according to the article in www.gardenguides.com (2000) human eye can't detect the subtle differences in light wavelength found in white light, such as sunlight. However, light occurs in varying wavelengths, with the longer wavelengths producing warm colors, such as red, and the shorter wavelengths producing the cooler colors on the spectrum, such as blue.

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Different wavelengths of light can trigger or inhibit growth and flowering in plants.

Plants, plants are primary food providers; they sit at the bottom of the food chain. So as your researchers we will expand and elaborate our title to you for the next chapters that will lead you to the answer that you are looking for. This study will help you yield informations about the light effects to the growth of plants. And will give you a better understanding on how it happens including its scientific basis.

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This interesting experiment will give you ideas and will help in producing the right product, and as for the consumers this will guide you in choosing the best among the rest.

As you have read on the above statements we can already detect and point out the factors that we will be discussing on the following chapters in our study. The factors or the variable of this study are the color of light which has already a brief introduction and will be further discussed to the next chapters and will be the independent variable of the study. The other factors are the mung bean, the soil, and temperature which are considered as the controlled variable in this study. And of course the growth of plant in terms of height and number of leaves which is considered as our dependent variable that will be noted further in this research study.

Through the study the researchers strongly believe that this will help farmers in the country to yield more crops and the effective artificial light for plants to use.

Statement of the problem

This study is conducted for further knowledge about the effect of the color of light to the growth of mung beans, in terms of height of the plant and its number of leaves. The concern of this study is also for the invention of new techniques for our Filipino Farmers using the colored transparencies. Which answers the problems that follows:

  • Does the different colors of transparency affects the growth of plant? In terms of height and number of leaves.
  • Which color of transparency makes the plant grow longest in height?
  • Which color of transparency makes the plant grow lowest in height?
  • Which color of transparency makes the plant have the most number of leaves?
  • Which color of transparency makes the plant have the least number of leaves?

Hypothesis of the Study

There will be a significant change to the growth of plant when exposed to different color of lights in terms of height and its number of leaves.

Objectives

The main objective of this study is to examine whether the color of light affects the growth of mung beans.

Significance of the study

Every year most of our Filipino farmers face problems involving the growth of their crop. This study strongly believes that the field in artificial light would help farmers to lessen their dilemmas. And for them not to worry for their manufactured goods. This will boost their knowledge on how this trick works and on how it can help them in a blow. With this study we can educate each one of us and we can say goodbye to the use of fertilizers and etc.

This study is conducted for the awareness of people that the different color of lights affect the growth of plant. Observing the changes of the plants will tell you how light changed the physical attributes of plant. This will help and give knowledge for more efficient way of farming that lets your crop yield more than what it produces. This will not just benefit the farmers by having their products more enriched but also the consumers having themselves a better consumed product.

As said this will lessen but not totally eliminate the use of artificial fertilizers and of course this will help us become healthy in a natural way. This can eliminate the harm that fertilizers bring us, but we will not focus further on that study. Scope and delimitations of the study

This study is focused mainly on the factors involving the number of leaves and height of plants based on the color of light. This will be observed and will be studied in at least a month or more, only the Mung beans are the plant to be experimented and of course it is of the same type. The number of seedlings to be use is at least twenty seeds five of each color including the plant without light.

We contemplate that the study will be finished in a month or more because a Mung bean is a plant that easily grows. The period of observation will be for a month and another month is for the discussion and another for the conclusion and its findings. The group chose Mung bean because it is the cheapest plant that grows with just a short period of time.

Chapter 2 - Theoretical Framework

This chapter contains review of related literature and studies, a conceptual framework, and definition of terms. Review of Related Literature

Mung Beans

Mung beans are commonly used in India, as well as in the cuisines of Burma, Sri lanka, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia,Vietnam, and other parts of Southeast Asia . The starch of mung beans is also extracted from them to make jellies and "transparent" or "cellophane" noodles. Mung batter is used to make crepes named pesarattu in Andhra Pradesh, India.Whole cooked mung beans are generally prepared from dried beans by boiling until they are soft. In Chinese cuisine, whole mung beans are used to make a tángshuǐ, or dessert, otherwise literally translated, "sugar water", called lǜdòu tángshuǐ, which is served either warm or chilled.

In Indonesia, they are made into a popular dessert snack called es kacang hijau, which has the consistency of a porridge. The beans are cooked with sugar, coconut milk, and a little ginger. Although whole mung beans are also occasionally used in Indian cuisine, beans without skins are more commonly used; but in Kerala, whole mung beans are commonly boiled to make a dry preparation often served with rice gruel (kanji). In the Philippines, it is the main ingredient of the dessert hopiang munggo.

A savory dish called ginisang monggo (known in English as 'sautéed mung bean', 'mung bean stew', or 'mung bean soup'), also known as mongo guisado or simplybalatong/monggos, is made of mung beans with shrimp or fish. It is traditionally served on Friday evenings, as the majority of the Filipino population are Roman Catholic and abstain from meat on Fridays, even outside of Lent. Ginisang monggo can also be made with chicken or pork. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mung_bean

Visible Light

Is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has a wavelength in the range of about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm – between the invisible infrared, with longer wavelengths and the invisible ultraviolet, with shorter wavelengths. Primary properties of visible light are intensity, propagation direction, frequency or wavelength spectrum, and polarisation, while its speed in a vacuum, 299,792,458 meters per second (about 300,000 kilometers per second), is one of the fundamental constants of nature.

Visible light, as with all types of electromagnetic radiation (EMR), is experimentally found to always move at this speed in vacuum. In common with all types of EMR, visible light is emitted and absorbed in tiny "packets" called photons, and exhibits properties of both waves and particles. This property is referred to as the wave–particle duality. In physics, the term light sometimes refers to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not. This article focuses on visible light. See the electromagnetic radiation article for the general term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light

Photoinhibition

Based on Bessel KokIs ( 1956) It is light-induced reduction in the photosynthetic capacity of a plant, alga, or cyannobacterium. Photosystem II (PSII) is more sensitive to light than the rest of the photosynthetic machinery, and most researchers define the term as light-induced damage to PSII.

Rate of plant growth due to the color of light

Plants, in fact, do grow faster under certain colors of light. The reason for this is that chloroplasts can only absorb certain wave lengths of light because of the pigments they contain. There are 2 photo systems in plants called photo system I and II. PS I absorbs light on the wavelength of 700nm while PS II absorbs 680nm because of their utilization of chlorophyll A and B. These two frequencies are known as the peak absorption points because they are the wavelength at which light is most strongly absorbed. Different forms of chlorophyll and other photosynthetic pigments absorb other other frequencies of light but PS I and PS II are what is used for synthesizing ATP and reducing power which plants use to grow.

The visible spectrum of light is between 380-750nm for humans. Therefore PS I and II require red light to perform photosynthesis. As stated before, however, there are other photosynthetic pigments present in plants and other phototrophic species such as bacteria and algae that absorb other pigments. An example of this is the carotenoid pigment that absorbs primarily blue light as do chlorophyll A and B. Blue light contains more energy than red light but for PS I and II and plant growth both are needed.

Studies in the 50's showed that the rate of photosynthesis increased under far-red and red light compared to other frequencies. Green plants will grow SLOWER or not at all under green light. Basically, green is the only brand of light that the plant's chloroplasts doesn't use. That is why it is the only color reflected from the leaf, and is what we see. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_plants_grow_faster_under_certain_colors_of_light

Light Absorption

Atoms and molecules contain electrons. It is often useful to think of these electrons as being attached to the atoms by springs. The electrons and their attached springs have a tendency to vibrate at specific frequencies. Similar to a tuning fork or even a musical instrument, the electrons of atoms have a natural frequency at which they tend to vibrate. When a light wave with that same natural frequency impinges upon an atom, then the electrons of that atom will be set into vibrational motion. If a light wave of a given frequency strikes a material with electrons having the same vibrational frequencies, then those electrons will absorb the energy of the light wave and transform it into vibrational motion.

During its vibration, the electrons interact with neighboring atoms in such a manner as to convert its vibrational energy into thermal energy. Subsequently, the light wave with that given frequency is absorbed by the object, never again to be released in the form of light. So the selective absorption of light by a particular material occurs because the selected frequency of the light wave matches the frequency at which electrons in the atoms of that material vibrate. Since different atoms and molecules have different natural frequencies of vibration, they will selectively absorb different frequencies of visible light. http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/light/u12l2c.cfm

Artificial Lighting

Artificial lighting is any lighting that is not sunlight. Generally speaking, artificial lighting is lighting which is manmade, such as fluorescent, tungsten, mercury vapor, sodium vapor, halogen, compact fluorescent, et cetera. It can be turned on and off at a flick of a switch. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_artificial_lighting

Related Studies

The researchers gathered data from the book and internet about the related studies to the study that we are conducting. And the following are the effects of the light depending on its color to the plant that became the outcome of other researchers study:

Foreign Studies

According to Mario De Bortoli & Jesús Maroto (2001 ). This paper was first published with the title “Translating colours in web site localisation” in 2001 in the Proceedings of the European Languages and the Implementation of Communication and Information Technologies (Elicit) conference. The use of colour is one of the means psychologists have at their disposal to analyse children. In early childhood colours are used more subjectively than in a naturalistic objective way. From the age of three to six children strongly prefer colour to shapes (the opposite is true at a later stage of development).

Bright red can be used by children to express anger, desire to destroy, while the black of the night can be fraught with all the depressive anguishes. The yellow of the sun can stand for a happy desire to communicate and express themselves. Younger children are attracted by strong, warm, and intense colours. As time progresses colours become less violent and softer shades appear: colours “cool down”. This process continues throughout life, with older people finding „subdued‟ colours more attractive.The findings about age differences in perception seem to indicate that colour intensity should be regulated to match the taste of the targeted age category.

Local Studies

The following are the outcome of the study conducted by other researchers here in the Philippines

According to Ishana H. Narayanan (2012) The plants grown under the green light had a very unsteady growth rate as the plant grew about 13 cm in the first two days and grew just about 1/10th of a cm towards the end of the experiment with minimal leafincrease. The plants that were grown under the blue light had a steadier growth rate compared to theplants grown in the green light but again the growth fizzled towards the end. The plants grown under thered light had a very steady growth rate as each red plant grew about 2 cm every other day throughout thetwo week period.

There was a steady leaf increase as well. In comparison to my control, red is the best togrow plants in.At the end of the experiment, I studied each plant's roots. The plants grown under the green light had extremely thin roots, small stems, and very unhealthy leaves when compared to the plants grown under the red light which had sturdy roots, thick stems, and healthy leaves. The plants grown under the bluelight had healthy stem and leaves but not very healthy roots.

Updated: Apr 29, 2023
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The Significance of Light for Plant Growth and Development. (2017, Mar 28). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/mung-beans-essay

The Significance of Light for Plant Growth and Development essay
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