Comparative Study of Lettuce and Radish Grown Under Red and Blue LEDs and White Fluorescent Lamps

Growing vegetable crops in space will be an essential part of sustaining astronauts during long-range missions. To drive photosynthesis, red and blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have attracted attention because of their efficiency, longevity, small size, and safety. In efforts to optimize crop yield, there is also recent interest in analyzing the subtle effects of additional wavelengths on plant growth. For instance, since plants often look purplish gray under red and blue LEDs, the addition of green light allows easy recognition of disease and the assessment of plant health status. However, it is important to know if wavelengths outside the traditional red and blue wavebands have a direct effect on enhancing or hindering the mechanisms involved in plant growth. In this experiment, a comparative study was performed on two short cycle crops of red romaine lettuce (Lactuca sativa cv. "Outredgeous") and radish (Raphanus sativa cv. 'Cherry Bomb'), which were grown under two light treatments. The first treatment being red (630 nm) and blue (450 nm) LEDs alone, while the second treatment consisted of daylight tri-phosphor fluorescent lamps (CCT approximately 5000 K) at equal photosynthetic photon flux (PPF). The treatment effects were evaluated by measuring the fresh biomass produced, plant morphology and leaf dimensions, leaf chlorophyll content, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) within plant leaf/storage root tissues.